Miracles — God CAN but WILL He?

I agree with your post, and keep myself sane with a similar conclusion. Not having had personal experiences like Ray’s and others’ I am quite agnostic about it. However, I can’t dispute their testimony or beliefs in their miracles, and like Ray I have also concluded that for some reason God sometimes grants miracles and sometimes doesn’t. He doesn’t apparently intervene on my behalf.

That said, I do sometimes wonder if God is not really omnipotent and hence cannot really intervene or perform miracles.

I think the root of this problem is what C.S. Lewis described in his book, “The Problem of Pain”. It’s a great read. I highly recommend it. http://www.rednovels.net/classics/u5584.html

“If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.”

His conclusion later was, that if God were both all powerful and perfectly good, than our definition of what is “good” must not be on par with what God considers “good”. Sometimes, the pain and suffering caused by others, ourselves, or even through “acts-of-God” are really in our best interest in the long run. I feel like I’ve been given enough evidence to know for certain that there is a God. I also know in my own life there have been many circumstances outside of my control which have helped me out of a bad situation, and have even helped me to find long lasting happiness I wouldn’t have found otherwise. The most prominent examples I can think of is my angelic wife.

But there are other miserable circumstances where I could really use a miracle, but no miracle came. An example from my own life was this long stent of unemployment I’ve had since college graduation. After almost a year of searching, and taking low paying temp jobs, I was finally offered a position working as a QA Chemist, making a ton of money. Plus, I’d have just about every other day off. The only issue was, it required me to work 12 hour shifts on Sunday, with no exceptions (not even an hour off for sacrament). Since testing artificial sweetners for a 24/7 plant didn’t feel “essential”, I couldn’t justify breaking the sabbath, and turned down the job. I reasoned that God was just adding to me another test, and that he would bless me with a miracle job if I kept the commandments. So here I am, many months later, having accepted a job at Chick-fil-a as a cashier, making less money than I have since I was 16. We’re in poverty, and yet can’t affort the healthcare we so desperately need. And I am going inactive, feeling like my biggest regret was not taking my dream job in favor of “keeping the Sabbath holy”.

I am not sure why miracles sometimes happen, but othertimes do not. I don’t know why at times I have been very blessed when things are going well, but other times have felt kicked in the gut when I’m already down. Of course, the opposite is true; having problems when things are fine, and getting a lift when I’m down. What bothers me the most, is that I’m having a hard time seeing the pattern. Is God’s ways really beyond my comprehension? Do I feel worse off now, because it will somehow make me better in the future? What lesson should I learn? Or is God just not paying attention?

If one is truly surrendered then one can take life as it comes trusting that God is in charge. This does not mean that only good things will happen. But it does tend to mean that God’s purposes for your life will be fulfilled and that God will make it all to be for your eventual benefit. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

This can give people comfort. They can gain inner peace. I believe that is the purpose. To give men courage to press forward when otherwise they might shrink is the purpose.

For me, this doesn’t bring comfort, for I believe that crappy things may happen to me, potentially chronic crappy things that take a huge amount of mental gymnastics and effort to simply live with no matter what I do.

I’ve seen good people with reams of bad luck as well, so I have a hard time with the “prosperity gospel” as the Jeremiah quote indicated. I do believe prosperity comes, but it’s largely a result of hard work and some good luck. As a humorist once said “the harder I work, the luckier I get”. I lace it with agnosticism about whether God will actually intervene if I ask him to. You can ask people, like God, to do things without necessarily expecting it to pan out. Just like when I was an insurance broker. We would bill the client for a late payment fee, while simultaneously asking the insurance company to waive the fee due to our own error in billing the client on time. We don’t know or believe the client or insurance company will do what we ask, but we act, and then wait for the results. We have already accepted that we may have to pay the fee out of our own bank account, but we sit back and wait for the results to come to us — without any expectation of either agreeing to our request.

I feel it’s better to simply go forward preparing for the worst, hoping for the best (not expecting it, just hoping that the best will happen), and doing all I can to make my situation better. I might pray and ask God for help, but it is without expectation. I was touched by a book called “Conversations with God”. There is a movie on it — if I were you, I’d consider watching it, as it is rich with spiritual and sometimes unorthodox ideas.

One of the principles is to “live life without any expectation of a specific result”. This does NOT mean you are without vision, goals, and work hard toward worthy goals, but it means you do so without your “heart” being set on it. This lessens disappointment and angst when the things on which you set your heart don’t materialize.

I get the impression that most of them do not expect the “plans to give you hope and a future” to become self evident until the next life.

Got it..that makes sense.

I don’t expect things, but that doesn’t stop me from praying for help, either.

Bingo!

What bothers me the most, is that I’m having a hard time seeing the pattern. Is God’s ways really beyond my comprehension? Do I feel worse off now, because it will somehow make me better in the future? What lesson should I learn? Or is God just not paying attention?

I am with dande on this.

My belief is God can do all things. His ways are higher than my ways, so I will never be able to predict it. Just trust it.

I have more comfort believing in interventions, and more peace in accepting it rarely happens. When it doesn’t happen, it must not have been needed. Life rolls on.

Asking “What lesson should I learn?” is more important than miracles.

Believing God can makes it irrelevant if He does.

“I grew up with the “Gospel of Job.” I quite literally was taught, growing up, that the most righteous souls receive the most difficult trials. For me, blessings from God meant that he would bless you just enough to get through these hard experiences and that through it all, you would have peace.

This is how I grew up as well, sorta. Well my father taught you decide through prayer and reasoning it out the best course of action and then you do it – and you deal with the fallout from the intended and unintended consequences. Can we call this the “Da– the torpedos, full speed ahead gospel”?

There are 9 of us for that very reason.

Essentially, I was taught that if you a really good person life is going to be very difficult.

This is more in line with my mother’s philosophy. Given that she stayed at home to raise all 9 of us, and I have a physically and mentally handicapped sister (child #3), it may have given her some peace.

So there’s my background. I don’t know how to answer the question of faith vs. expectation of intervention from God.

I don’t have a real answer on expectation of intervention from God. I believe that everything is a joint effort between Him and Me – unless I slack off from what I know I personally need to do (usually not what everyone else “thinks” I should be doing) – and if it just my efforts giving glory to His name – I feel my soul is better for that.

I believe that God can and will intervene when it is important to do so – But I don’t expect him to do so. I also don’t expect that what I consider “important” is what he considers “important” – nor do I think that we can be given lists and landmarks to go by while looking for these actions by God.

If I had been around Zarahemla in the 3 weeks before the signs announcing Christ’s birth, I would probably have had a good sense of which way the wind was blowing politically and gotten myself and my family out of town (Good enough for Lehi, right?). One the one hand, I would have missed out on a miraculous event – on the other hand, since I didn’t know the event was happening and could do the math leading to being slaughtered…