60 Seconds – Miracles

In October, 2000, Reader’s Digest published the following story:

“A decade ago Bernadette McKenzie, 12, could no longer stand upright, even after three operations. She suffered from a rare spinal condition causing constant pain. The nuns at her school in suburban Philadelphia began a series of prayers. On the fourth day, McKenzie knelt by her bed, telling God that if this was to be her life, she would accept it. But she wanted a sign. If she were to walk again, she pleaded, let her favorite song, ‘Forever Young,’ play next on the radio. It did. She jumped up, and ran to tell her family. Her symptoms had disappeared – something doctors say is medically inexplicable. Her recovery is being evaluated by the Vatican as a possible miracle.”

Acts 19:11 states, “And God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. “Unusual miracles” means “mighty, exceptional, out-of-the-ordinary deeds.” C. S. Lewis said, “Do not attempt to water Christianity down. There must be no pretense that you can have it with the supernatural left out. So far as I can see, Christianity is precisely the one religion from which the miraculous cannot be separated.”

John G. Paton was a missionary to the people of New Hebrides in the South Seas. The people were savages, and lived in the depths of sin. At first, he struggled to get them to listen to his message. Then, the water supply ran out on the island because of the lack of rain. The natives had never seen a well. Paton proceeded to dig one, which was the beginning of the conversion of the people. On beginning the well, Paton told the chief that he believed God would give them rain from the hole in the ground. The only fresh water the natives had was that caught when it rained. The chief and the others declared that if Paton could bring rain from the hole in the ground, his must be the true God.

Finally, after digging to some depth, he found a spring of fresh water. The effect upon the people was awesome. The old chief asked for the privilege of preaching a sermon at the Sunday services, standing on the well. He made an earnest appeal as he was swinging his tomahawk, crying aloud, “People of Aniwa, the world has turned upside down since the Word of Jehovah is come to this land. Who ever expected to see rain come up through the earth? From this day, I must worship Him who has opened up for us this well, and who fills it with rain from below!” The people came to Christ in the masses, until eventually there was not a heathen left on the island.

“Your religious life is every day to be proof that God works impossibilities, your religious life is to be a series of impossibilities made possible and actual by God’s almighty power” (Andrew Murray).