Remember the 2004-12 TV Series Called “House”? Well, here we go again – only reality makes room for miracles

Miracles We Have Seen:

America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget

Editor: Harley A. Rotbart, MD

Published by: Health Communications, Inc., Deerfield Beach, Florida, 2016

                                          

I could not help but think of the TV show starring Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House as I read this book. But this time, these real doctors share stories of miraculous events that can’t be explained by medical science.  And they admit it. Some of them even attribute the outcomes to faith and God – often when nothing else can be credited with the interventions.

Seventy-five different medical professionals share their unforgettable stories. The editor almost always provides the reader the information and sources needed to follow up on these real cases. This is not only helpful but makes each story (most within our lifetime) even more real for the fact-checking, research-hungry, web-browsing enthusiast.

There is a big difference, as the book’s contributors point out, between declining proven medical treatments that are available and beneficial, choosing instead to wait for a miracle, and allowing doctors to do all they can to help save a loved one. The former approach often ends up in disappointment, while the latter allows room for miracles to occur when the science alone cannot.  That’s a major lesson we can draw from this book.

A number of stories hinge on the coincidences of location, timing, and/or the availability of the expertise. To the purpose of faith, the probability of such occurring together in any given case is too much to leave to chance, but that’s a decision each reader will have to make for themselves. Based on how these doctors write about the ‘miracle’ they share, I often wonder how many of them are ‘hidden believers’ in the Creator, but just won’t or can’t say it openly here. In this book, we seem to be getting the message, both doctors and family members, “Do your job and God (or miracles) will take care of the rest.” These doctors have learned that “beyond the limits of (their) medical knowledge and skill, there is also always the power of hope.”

One story that sticks in my mind is that told by Debra Gussman, MD, entitled “An Impossible Pregnancy”. That one alone will challenge your ‘unbeliefs’.

Miracles We Have Seen is also invaluable for teaching the non-medical reader so much about medicine and how our bodies work. What makes it particularly good in this way is that the editor(s) have made sure that the stories these professionals share are explained in ways that the average man and woman can understand.  I learned a lot. Here are but a few examples:

·      In one story entitled, It’s Alive! By Robert J. Buys, MD, we learn about an “embolus” (the term for any kind of substance that shouldn’t be there traveling through the bloodstream) and how doctors attempt to deal with one that is in the eye. Fascinating insight (no pun intended).

·      White blood cells being a sign of inflammation, the body’s response to infection and other foreign substances.

·      What doctors mean by the term “failure to thrive” when referring to children, that is, a condition in which growth and body weight are far below normal.

·      Transplanted hearts (or any organ for that matter) come with great challenges – nothing is better than the organs we were born with if we can keep them working well.

·      An ‘obtunded’ patient is one who is losing consciousness or difficult to arose.

·      As a general rule, “people who fall three stories. . . have about a fifty-fifty chance of survival.”

·      And many more things and terms and practices and discouragements. For example, the realization by doctors working in Africa that healing cannot be just “medical”, it is often economic, as one patient stares them in the eye and says, “Cure my poverty, and you will cure me.”

The stories in this book are divided into major chapters entitled: Spectacular Serendipity; Impossible Cures; Breathtaking Resuscitations (my favorite); Extraordinary Awakenings (my second favorite); Unimaginable Disasters; Mysterious Presence; Global Miracles (dealing with epidemics); Miracles In Their Own Time (a modern historical perspective); Paying It Forward; Difficult Decisions (my third favorite); Silver Linings; and Back To The Beginning (transforming doctors into professionals – a great piece of writing).

We learn how doctors, pediatricians in particular, have a hard time as they often project their own children onto their patients, sometimes “identifying so strongly that it’s difficult to stay objective”. Then there are the times when doctors feel, “Yes, we have saved a life, but to what end?” That’s the often haunting question when one knows the patient will live but not as one would have preferred.

And if that’s not enough, in the Epilogue we are told that 100% of the author proceeds are divided among 75 different charities designated by the contributors and listed in that section.

I had occasion to be in the hospital right after I read this book. It greatly enhanced my appreciation of the wonderful doctor that took care of me.  Very highly recommended by anyone who is a doctor or ever needs to see one.

·      Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, November 13, 2016. www.accordconsulting.com

 Get the book here: http://astore.amazon.com/accorconsu-20

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A Book You Really Can't Judge By It's Cover

Beyond The Comfort Zone: The War That Never Ends

Frank Wilkins, Xlibris, USA, 2015

What attracted me to the opportunity to review this book was a promise that, as the symbol on the front shows, it wasn’t about “questions”, but rather “answers”.  And in particular, answers to global wars that never seem to end – the cultural war concerning the very existence of God and the religious war as to which supreme spiritual entity of our affections is indeed the “one and only true” God.

As a Christian, the topic as well as the background of the author, Frank Wilkins, intrigued me.  Frank graduated from high school, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, served as a radioman, and afterwards earned his Bachelor of Science degree. It was that normal of a life. That’s the very point he strives to make – the regular man and woman of this world – us simple common folks can indeed find answers and the truth to the very issues that cause global warfare.  God is there to be sought and found for those willing to remove their blinders.  By definition the truth exists and we can ascertain it.

Wilkins makes no bones about being an agnostic for the early part of his life and then a Roman Catholic.  It makes sense therefore that some of his evidence for the existence of God comes from his own experiences and that part of the Christian faith that he found a home in.  However, a good portion of it also comes from universal history and facts attested to by both believers and non-believers.

He has this amazing ability to dig through the questions and objections of atheists and others with respect to the denial of God’s existence, assuring them that if they really want to get out from behind blinders and take a hard look at facts, they can find the truth. He identifies realities of life that must be contended with.  One example is the reality that one’s life will definitely end. He helps true seekers struggling about whether or not a God, if He existed, would accept them by suggesting they should not be hard on themselves – “Do you think He let those Roman soldiers nail His Son to a wooden cross just so you could sit there and damn yourself for the rest of your life?”

Wilkins also takes on historians who have time and again distorted history to hide the inconvenient truth and the entertainment industry that pushes adults and worse still, young children, into promises of lies for the sake of the almighty dollar. He gives several well-known examples of historic battles where the outcome was decided because God decided to show up on the battlefield. That alone makes for fascinating reading.

Wilkins has an interesting perspective on Islam, Muslims, and the end of the world as well, but allows all of us to make up our own minds, always reminding us not to knock the ideas of others.  He is not too happy about all the distinctions and fights in Christianity, but again explains their existence as another reality.  Also of interest are his views of predestination as it relates to modern science, of evolution and Darwin’s usefulness, and of the actual age of the world.

This is a great book to help anyone get a grip on the answer to the question, “Is there a God?” For one who has been a life-long believer belonging to the Protestant arm of the faith, it helped me to understand the thinking of those who are not growing up in the Church, as well as to gain a clearer perspective on some very famous “miracles” the Roman Catholic Church holds dear to, and how these very miracles help explain their view of the Virgin Mary and the mother of Jesus.

Bottom line for Wilkins is this: “No amount of denial can prevent anyone from ultimately meeting their Maker face to face. You might as well try to deny the existence of the IRS in order to avoid paying taxes.”

He strongly recommends that when you get to “a point where we catch ourselves putting our faith in anything besides God”, that’s the very point we need to realize that for us, it would be foolish to deny His existence.

    -- Ken B. Godevenos, Accord Resolution Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario. 15/10/24

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More Signs To Accompany Moses -- Exodus 4:6-9

And the Lord furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom.  So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow.  Then He said, “Put your hand into your bosom again.”  So he put his hand into his bosom again; and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.  “And it shall come about that if they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign.  But is shall be that if they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

Did God think that Moses’ throwing his staff on the ground, having it turn into a snake, then picking the snake up by its tail, and having it turn back into his staff was not going to be sufficient for convincing the children of Israel that he had heard from the God of their fathers?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps God was just showing a little bit of frustration here when He then told Moses what else he could do to prove that his authority was coming from on high.

Whatever the case for more proof, God told Moses to put his hand on his chest (one imagines through his outer coat) and then to take it out again.  As Moses obeyed, the hand became leprous and turned white.  We don’t know what Moses’ reaction to that was.  Was it fear similar to when he saw the snake?  Or was he now willing to expect and accept anything that God would do or could do?

It really does not matter, for God did not require him to dwell long on the situation and immediately told him to put his leprous hand back on his chest and to pull it out again.  Although, if Moses were as sharp as we believe him to have been, then what happened next was less of a surprise to him, and more of an re-assurance of God’s power.  The leprous flesh on his hand returned to its normal look, similar to that of the rest of his body.

And then God says something interesting, perhaps beating Moses to another question.  God says, “Look, and if they don’t believe this sign or the first one, here’s a third one.”  God then proceeds to tell Moses what he will need to do at that time.  In examining that statement more closely, I find its structure a little puzzling.  The ‘western’ mind would ask, “Why would God say ‘if they will not believe you’?  Did God not know whether they would or not?  Does God not know everything?  The ‘Judaic’-thinking mind, however, would have no problem with this.  Of course God knew and knows everything that has, is, and will occur.  Judaic-thinking would lead us to say that God here was projecting himself into the circumstance from Moses’ point of view.  Moses is really the one asking, “what if they don’t believe even this?” and it is just that God was asking it for him and answering it as well.

For his final display of proof that God had met with him, Moses was to get some water from the Nile River and pour it on the ground and it would turn into blood.

These three miracles that Moses was given warrant some further comment.  The first two – staff to snake and back again; and his own hand turning leprous and then back to normal – were indeed miracles of what David Guzik in his Study Guide on this text calls “miracles of conversion”.  The third – taking water from the Nile and turning it into blood but not back again into water – was a “miracle of judgment”.  Guzik says the first miracle also conveys to Moses that if he obeyed God, his enemies would be made powerless.  The second miracle, involving his own hand, was to convey to Moses and us who read of it, that his own sin (his own polluted body or self) could be made pure.  There is an inference here as Matthew Henry suggests, that the Israelites had polluted their lives in Egypt, turning to other gods and worshiping them.  Are we guilty of the same thing?   Here God is showing that they can become pure again.  If we ourselves have any doubt in God’s power to defeat our enemies and to make us pure, then there is no way we can minister to others, or on behalf of others.  So, God shows that to Moses (and through him, to us) first before Moses (and by inference, us) was to convince others of the same truths.

There is also a possibility here that the first miracle was somehow symbolic of how Moses was going to take the ‘governing power’ away from Pharaoh (when Moses first held this own staff), through God’s help, and vest it in himself (when the staff was given to him at the end of the miracle), in order to be able to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.

With the second miracle, the leprous hand, there is also the possibility of a symbolic foreshadowing of some of the plagues that were going to impact the land of Egypt.  Matthew Henry points out that this second miracle might also have been intended to make sure that Moses understands that he could not boast about anything that results and that all the glory should always go to God – for his hand too was leprous.

But taking water from the Nile and turning it into blood was a little different.  It was not to be turned back into water.  Guzik writes, “if the miracles of conversion (the first two) did not turn the hearts of the people, then perhaps the sign of judgment will.”  Matthew Henry reminds us also that later on in our story of Moses, God does turn the entire Nile into blood, later making it a plague, and perhaps this miracle was a foreshadowing of that event.

Moses now had his three miracle-weapons intended to destroy both his own doubts, and those of the children of Israel.  And with that, Moses’ latest objection (number 3) is refuted.  [You will remember, objection number one was, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh?”.  Objection two was “What if they ask me your name?”]   Has he had enough?  That remains to be seen.  But let us focus on you and I for a moment?  How many ways, and how many times does God need to refute our objections to something He wants us to do?  If we each stop long enough to ask ourselves that very question as we read this, then I think that we have gained much from the text.

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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God Continues to Share His Plan for the Exodus -- Exodus 3:19-22

“But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under compulsion.  So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My miracles which I shall do in the midst of it; and after that he will let you go.  I will grant this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed.  But every woman shall ask of her neighbor and the woman who lives in her house, articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and daughters. Thus you will plunder the Egyptians.”

Even though God instructs Moses in what to tell the Egyptian King, He also tells him the supreme ruler of the land will not let them go unless he is coerced into doing so.  As a result of the Pharaoh’s reluctance to let the Children of Israel go, God tells Moses He will foray the land of Egypt with “all the signs of wonder I chose to exhibit to them and then they’ll let you go.”

We are not to think that by saying, “all My miracles” God had no other miracles available to Him.  While He did not say at this time how many such ‘miracles’ He would inflict on Egypt, He did assure Moses that when He was through, Pharaoh would let his people go.  But wait, there’s more.  There’s also a bonus payment from their Egyptian masters upon separation.  God says that while the Egyptians may have feared the Israelites due to their numbers and thus responded with an imposition of strong control over them, He would now see to it that they found ‘favor’ in their sight and when it was going to be time for them to leave Egypt, the Israelites would be taking lots of gifts with them.

I note, and as we shall see later, that this ‘favor’ is not exactly esteem or support or kindness, but more a “Sure, sure, take what you need and get out of here; just go!” type of ‘favor’.  God told Moses that the Israelite women were to ask of their Egyptian neighbors for articles of silver and gold, and of fine clothes, with which to adorn and dress their own sons and daughters.  God Himself refers to the ‘favor’ He will grant to the Israelites from the Egyptians as a means of “plundering” the nation that kept them in captivity for so long.

How are we to interpret this?  Was God teaching them how to rip off the Egyptians?  I don’t think so.  Commentator Chuck Smith says, in his C2000 Series, on this verse, “But in reality what they were taking was really the wages that were due to them through the several years of slavery, and servitude in which they were not paid. And so it was just really collecting back wages for all of the years that they had been slaves to the Egyptians.”  My own take on this is that God sometimes brings legitimate circumstances about – in this case, the asking for jewelry and clothes – as a means to bring justice to acts of injustice.

I believe the lesson here for us today is that when God hears our cry for deliverance from something or someone that has enslaved us, we better be willing to let Him do it in His way and time.  And we need to be willing to do our part.

As I study this section of Scripture today I am aware of the ‘enslavement’ that many of us find ourselves in.  I read recently of one man that has hired a person to “slap his face” every time he goes on the social media called Facebook.  He was desperately trying to free himself of his enslavement to its addiction.  Others of us may have more serious enslavements.

Enslavement also occurs at a family, group, local church, or even national level.  I believe America is enslaved today from many sources – both internally and externally and many believers are crying to God for deliverance.  I am not as convinced that these same people are willing though to be delivered in the way and time that God wants to deliver them.   I believe many Christians that make up the Body of Christ are collectively enslaved by the manipulation of our spiritual enemy, the Devil.

But here’s the good news.  The same God that told Moses how He was going to deliver the Israelites and later did can deliver us from all our enslavement.  He has told us how in His Love Letter to us, the Bible.  And the bonus the Egyptians got is nothing in comparison to what is in store for all of God’s true children.  I pray it will be so for us all. -->

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Jesus, Faith, and Miracles/Signs vs. Words

Do you believe in miracles? I do.  I mean after all, if I'm at a wedding and someone turns my glass of water (from which I have already had a sip and know it is water) into excellent red wine, I cannot deny that a miracle has taken place, regardless of how it is explained.  I know I couldn't do it.

Or I'm walking along the street and an acquaintance of mine about whom I know something but not very much, is approached by someone I don't know at all.  The latter tells my acquaintance that his child is dying and my acquaintance says "The child will live, just return home."  I just happen to check my watch at the instant that is said and I note the time.  A little while later, this stranger returns and informs my acquaintance that his child was indeed healed at exactly 2 p.m. that afternoon.  I remember that was the exact time my acquaintance made his statement, "The child will live."  As a result, I believe in miracles.

And I believe with the exception of some people who may be named Thomas, just about everyone under those and similar situations, would believe in miracles.  However, I also understand that such belief only allows one to account for what he cannot explain.  It does not get you much more than just that in life.

Neither can one say that "because I believe in miracles, I am a true believer in God, the kind Jesus wanted and talked about."  Philip W. Comfort and Wendell  C. Hawley in their book Opening John's Gospels and Epistles: Pastoral Reflections on Love, Light, and Logos say, "True belief in God means belief in his Word.  Jesus' miracles, according to the Gospel of John, were signs pointing the people who witnessed them to the one who performed the signs -- Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.  If the miracle produced faith only in a miracle worker and not in the Son of God, then the purpose of the sign was missed."

I wonder how many of us have only been believing in the miracles and maybe even in the fact that whoever performs them, including Jesus, is a wonderful miracle-worker?  I think of all the miracles that people experience everyday as they live (some of them not even realizing it sometimes) and yet know nothing about the Miracle Worker.  Or I think of the thousands that go to someone, some place, at the right time, and pay the right entrance or application fee, in order to get healed, and if by chance they do, they focus strictly on the human miracle-worker who was involved.

And then there are those of us who are perfectly aware of miracles in our own lives all the time.  We believe in miracles.  We are also aware of miracles performed by God in the lives of others, individually and globally.  We are fully cognizant of the true Miracle Worker.  But have taken the next step to go beyond those beliefs?

We must move to point where our belief must be in Jesus' "words", not just His miracles.  We must believe what He has said about Himself, about the world, about eternity.  And most importantly about His part in our salvation and eternal life.  It is that belief that really counts.  It is that belief that marks us as true believers, as true followers, of His.  Anything short of that and we're bound to 'sink in the water' as we attempt to pursue Him.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, we note that the Centurion was asking Jesus for a miracle (vs. 47).  He believed in miracles for he had likely heard that this man Jesus performed one at the wedding in Cana.  But as Jesus talked to him and told him to go home for his son would live, the Centurion believed in Jesus' words, and did as told (vs. 51).  And finally, the text says he believed once more (vs. 53), but in what?  This was no longer about believing in miracles, or even in Jesus' words -- this was about believing in Jesus Himself, as the very Son of God.  He became a true Jesus follower and his life changed drastically.  May it be so with us. 

Thanks for dropping by.  Sign up to receive free updates.  We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources.  Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar.  And please share this blog with your friends.   Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.