Good versus evil and miracles of today
Hope and Healing International shares the story of Lezita and her daughter Lonely who contracted malaria and slipped into a coma for two weeks. When she finally opened her eyes, the nurses said it was a miracle. Lezita should call her daughter Miracle.
Lezita couldn’t bring herself to use her daughter’s new name at first. Lonely was paralyzed. What future did she have? But Lezita prayed for a cure. “I had lost all hope my child would ever walk again.”
After many months of physio-therapy Miracle wobbled to her feet and stood. In tears Lezita spoke her daughter’s name for the first time, “Miracle.” Now Lezita watches Miracle skip a rope with joy and abandon, and knows that God performs miracles.
We are living in a world that does not readily believe in miracles. If we saw God part the red Sea with a strong wind, producing dry ground, would the world believe it?
In a BBC News story published January 8, 2020, David Jeffrey relates how residents of a small Australian beach town were prepared to jump into the sea in order to escape the roaring flames.
“We could hear the roar. It sounded like a thousand freight trains coming at us. Then a huge gust, like someone had opened the door of a furnace, pushed us,” Jeffery said. Then he and two other Christian believers began to pray.
“We were going to die,” Jeffery said. “Lord if you don’t push this [fire] back now, we need [wind] from the east.”
“As soon as I said that, it started blowing from the east a little bit. Then I got louder and [the wind] got stronger. Then I got louder again, and it got stronger again.”
“I felt it change. I noticed that the bolder I got, the stronger [the wind got]. I was yelling, ‘In Jesus’ name, thank you Lord for rescuing these souls. Push it back Lord, rescue us!’”
“What God did was push [the fire] back from the east, which was impossible, but he did it. He did that for five minutes, which broke [the fire front] enough to stop it from getting to where we were,” he said.
Jeffery relates a second miracle as he and his fellow residents were able to see the fire wall move toward people’s homes — toward the Wave Oasis.
“Then I heard God say to me, ‘pray’. I started off with a pathetic little prayer,” he said. “Then within me, this faith rose up and said, ‘who are you praying to?’ And I thought, ‘Yes! You’re the God of the Bible. Nothing’s impossible with you! You’ve got angels Lord, put them at the corners of the property.”
A second time, God did the impossible for the people of Mallacoota. Jeffery wants people to know that “there is a God and he does love them, that the only safe place is behind that cross.”
American writer Percy Walker said, “In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. This is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.”
This pessimism is understandable in the United States where 25% of the population does not profess any religion. I am more optimistic. Good will defeat evil. The Kingdom will come in due time, and what looked like the defeat of Jesus at the crucifixion will be the salvation victory of all the world.
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