Do you believe in miracles? I had a doctor tell me once that with all the things that could possibly go wrong in a pregnancy it was a miracle every time a healthy baby is born. And yet it happens so often we almost take it for granted. I think that there are miracles every day in our life that we take for granted. And yet, in my life, there have been events that I can only describe as Supranatural. I don’t like the world supernatural because it seems to have taken on a context of something that shouldn’t be. And yet, when a miracle is of God then it IS natural. If God made the heavens and earth than any action he takes in the world is a type of natural act. It may temporarily bypass the laws of physics that we understand but that does not mean it is un-natural. Just that we cannot comprehend them. Science is not God, God is God. The whole basis of science is that the world makes sense and can therefore be studied. There is no reason to assume that if the world is a mass of randomly generated events. In other words, there can be no real science unless you assume intelligent design. At least I don’t think there can be and I think those who dismiss that are fooling themselves.
I pray regularly for people to hear the voice of God. I pray that people have an overwhelming experience of the presence of the Divine and I tend to feel sorry for those who do not believe in miracles and have not had such spiritual experiences. They may say, do, and think the right things but how sad that they have not had “a foretaste of glory divine.” John Wesley said that such a baptism by the Holy Spirit in power and truth was necessary to move from being an “almost Christian” to a “Complete Christian.” Most sad to me is anyone who has not actually felt the overwhelming love and care from the Presence of the Living God or his messengers. All these things have been such a part of my life that it would be foolish for me to deny the existence of a Living God who is as close to us as our breath and who interacts with us in our lives. Read on if you want to know more.
In the above quote John Wesley refers to the prophecy in Revelation that in the last days people will have the form of religion but deny the power of it. He thought that too many churches had already fallen into that in his own time during the 1700s and he preached a revival throughout his life to what he called true religion. He often spoke of the “almost Christian.” People who obeyed the forms of religion but, like the pharisees experienced none of the power of God.
I am not special. Actually, playing with things I did not understand I opened a portal to a demonic presence of some sort and my sister (the Reverend Doctor) had to close it. (That is an interesting story, but I won’t go into it here today. But let’s start by saying that in my experience the Spiritual world is as real as our physical world. Later my sister worked with me so I could do it for others, and then when I faced something extremely dark and powerful I believe that an angel must have stood at my shoulder whispering directions for me to overcome the demonic presence. That was a battle that God won for it was far beyond my own power. Since then, I have cleansed both houses and people of the dark presences. In the New Testament and also in English bibles we get an oversimplified view of the spiritual world for when the New Testament passed through the Greek language the great myriads of spiritual creatures that the Hebrew Bible spoke of reduced everything to Angels/Messengers of God and Demons/servants of the infernal. However, there are creatures of varying ability and power in each of those categories that our Bibles no longer distinguish as separate.
I have heard too many pastors who have never battled with anything from beyond claim that any Christian can read the scripture and the devil will flee. Despite the fact that such oversimplification is denied in the Bible by Jesus himself (“This kind only comes out with prayer and fasting,”) they reduce the Bible to a kind of magical formula. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard of people who were beset by an actual demonic presence who went to their church for help and the pastor came over (sometimes apparently to “indulge their fantasy,”) and ended up fleeing the scene in fear and would never again respond to the parishioners pleas for help. Such cowardice is unbecoming of a servant of the Living God. If you try to face such a force without the true power of religion and an indwelling Spirit of God, you are doomed to failure. It is not by our strength that we conquer but God’s alone and if a pastor does not regularly place himself or herself in the Presence of the Living God, they have little or no chance of prevailing. These pastors have the form of religion but deny the power of it.
It is not entirely their fault. We live in a radically materialistic society, and I knew pastors in seminary who believed that God was a psychological construct and the church was some time of social club. These pastors are as likely to refer parishioners who experience a demonic presence to the psychiatrist rather than to respond ready for battle. (And it is true that some of these people MAY need psychiatric aid instead of spiritual. However, one of the most terrifying movies I ever saw were of a family beset by a demonic presence who went to a psychiatrist for help, the psychiatrist came to believe they were facing the paranormal but then her supervisor intervened and the family and the psychiatrist had everyone committed to a sanitarium. In the final scenes the minds of the people were clouded by medication while the demonic presence still fed on their souls. Only now they no longer had a clear mind to be able to defend themselves from it. But that is the world we live in. A world that has the form of religion but denies the power of it. How many people go without help because they either refuse to admit the problem to themselves or to anyone who could help? We will never know.
I remember arguing with God when he kept directing me to engage in battles with such entities. Everything I read and let’s be honest the Catholic Church is about the only denomination that actually admits to these things and writes about it. Say that an exorcist should be pure of heart and have lived a life of holiness so that the devil has no hold over him. That is definitely not me. I have some question as to whether even those we believe live a holy life actually do because we will never know of any secret sins they may be taunted by. Still, I don’t know why God draws close to me when I have not lived a life in holiness and purity. My friends call me (my friends mind you – those who know me best – call me the Evil Overlord – granted we play role playing games and I once sent around to all my players a list of 101 things to remember if you are ever an evil overlord – but the name stuck.) I was a US Army Drill Sergeant and trained Cavalry Scouts. I guarantee you my trainees that I later met do not see me as a saintly sage person, rather to them it is “That S.O.B.” Well, except for one who seemed to have a case of “hero worship.” A fine and enthusiastic fellow, he was my Platoon Guide (Trainee Leader) in his cycle. Yet his confidence in me made me somewhat uncomfortable.
His confidence was not entirely misplaced. Drill Sgts can be extra-ordinary. I remember in Germany when I first arrived in 3/8 Cav, I checked in with a line of new troopers at the unit armory. I mentioned, casually, respectfully, that it was against regulations for you (the armorer,) to have you pen clipped to your shirt where it was showing. He quipped back with a made-up regulation number and said, “That regulation makes an exception for armorers because they need their pen handy in the course of their work.” I looked at him for a moment and then said, “The army regulation on the wearing of the uniform is Army Regulation AR 670-1. I suggest next time that you try to bullshit someone about US Army regulations that it not be someone wearing a Drill Sgt patch on their pocket.”
Today, I have a Drill Sgt Badge on the left side of my Grey Stetson, crossed sabers and the 3/8 Cav unit crest “Honor and Courage” on the front, and on the pinned up right flap with the ostrich feather behind it I have the crests of other units I belonged to (I got tired of my unit crests banging around in my sock drawer and finally put them on my hat so they wouldn’t get scratched up. I say all this because I now live in the town of Leavenworth, right outside of Fort Leavenworth. I like it here. A large proportion of the town are ex-military or former military dependents. I can relate better to these folks.
So, as I was walking through Home Depot, I walked by a man in a Home Depot smock and as I walked by, he started reciting. He was reciting the instructions for standing at the position of Parade Rest. I started laughing and turned around. “You never forget it, do you.” He had seen the Drill Sgt Badge on my hat. We all carry around those basic instructions for Drill and Ceremonies in our heads…you never know when they will come in handy.
Anyway, I don’t see a lot of saints like that, there are a couple who were soldiers. St. Martin comes immediately to mind. Perhaps why God uses me has something to do with Patton’s quote. I don’t run away.
When I went into the ministry, we were asked what Biblical figure we most identified with. I said David. I don’t know if you have actually looked at the story of David. Christians often gloss over in their minds the realities in the Bible. David stole the bread of the presence – meant only for priests and God – from the church to serve his warband and threatened the priest with his sword to get it because his men were hungry and God could get by without it. David led a warband of mercenaries after King Saul drove him out and he fought for nearly every king in the Levant at one time or another. He had quite a reputation. “Saul has killed his hundreds, but David has killed thousands!” was a popular singsong that children sang while playing back in his day…that really pissed King Saul off because he was quite the warrior himself. Saul, however, had become comfortable in his own power and had turned from God.
I could go on with all the sins of David, but it would take a book, and many books about David just gloss over the “real” parts. And I didn’t even mention that he seduced the wife of one of his soldiers and then conspired with his commanders to send that soldier on a suicide mission so he could marry his pregnant adulteress before she started showing (it was clear it couldn’t be her husbands because he had been gone all year fighting King David’s wars.) That was Bathsheba. She must have been a hotty, or PHAT as they used to say. She was not completely innocent. The king would always take a break in the afternoon and relax on his balcony at the same time each day. Bathsheba decided to take her bath (naked of course, that’s how you do baths,) on her roof just below and in sight of the King’s balcony every day at his break time. Not really a coincidence there. Anyway, despite the stories in Sunday School the people of the Bible are real people with real faults. It’s just that some church folks don’t read that into the text or let it stick in their memories. But, I think, the idea that God loves people, despite all their faults is a much more comforting message than the empty platitudes that come from some pulpits. With all he had done David is repeatedly described as being “a favorite of God.” I think this is because David, for all his faults, loved God totally. At least I can claim that a love of the Living God and a deep understanding that he is God and I am not.
Very few saints of the church, if any, could be called perfect. Perhaps St. Michael and St. Mary but there you have an angel and the Queen of Heaven, so they don’t really count as “normal.”
For all my faults God has been extraordinarily present in my life. My first experience as a small child, kindergarten age, I think. I was looking for my mom (the choir director,) in church. I found myself at the foot of the chancel (the raised portion in front of the church that the minister, priest, liturgist stand on.) I remember thinking in my child-like reasoning, “God lives there…Does he really?” I looked around and no one was watching. I stepped onto the first step. Nothing extraordinary happened. I looked around again and stepped onto the second step and all the hairs on my arm and the back of my neck stood up. I stepped onto the top step and onto the chancel and there was an audible crackle of energy that I felt through my body, and I leapt backwards and completely off the steps and ran out of the sanctuary.
Later, I thought that it had to be static electricity from the speakers. But how often “can coincidences” happen to you before the rational belief is to say it is more improbable that this could all be random chance that that there be some power, we can call on that can affect our lives? Maybe it was static electricity. But what if it was not?
Being spacy sometimes, back in the days where country gas stations still obeyed the “blue laws” and were closed on Sunday we ran out of gas in the van. Below empty and the nearest next stop where I knew there was a chain gas station that would definitely be open was over 30 miles away. I prayed with my wife and family that we could get to that station and we did…on empty. Maybe the needle was stuck?
Before that I used to pray for parking spaces at the university so that I didn’t have to walk a mile or more with my disability by parking in the student lots. It didn’t always work, and I was beginning to wonder if it was my imagination, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, when the girl friend I was dating at the time asked, “How is it you always get these primo parking spots?” I just told her I send ahead for them. Also, if I DIDN’T get a good parking space I figured there was some reason God wanted me to walk. Maybe he wanted me to meet someone, or maybe I was getting lazy.
Now if you don’t spend an hour a day talking and listening to God maybe you don’t have a relationship where you can ask for petty things, even if you do maybe that did not serve to ‘build the kingdom.’ In fact, I don’t recommend testing God. He doesn’t seem to like it. Also, if what you call prayer time is simply a laundry list of asking for what you want, I would say that you don’t want a relationship with the Living God you want one with Santa Claus.
My wife had her first preaching engagement as a student at seminary. We were in KC, and it was in Lincoln. We had money in the bank; a check had just come in so we were good. Or so we thought. We just had to pick up her preaching robe (given to her by a professor who thought she was called – my wife was not sure – I said well preach for Michael and see how it goes. Let this be a sign if all goes well God wants you to preach.) Well, it didn’t go well. We went to get gas, and we had no money. Apparently, there was a hold on the funds until the check we deposited cleared. No money, no gas, no preaching robe.
“Well,” I said, “Let’s go see if we can get your robe.”
“How we have no money?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll tell them we need it an will pay them next week. Maybe I can get it.”
I went in and gave the cleaners the ticket for the robe and they brought it out and she started punching in the keys to the cash register as I was trying to gear up the words to tell her we had no money to pay the bill she said, “Oh, its free.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s free,” she said. “We have a special that every thousandth customer gets their cleaning free. Its all computerized…we never know when it will pop up but your order is free today.” Another coincidence?
I took it to my wife and she cried, feeling that God had validated her. Again, how many times can coincidences happen before the odds of random chance approach an impossibility.
The robe wasn’t enough in itself. We still had to get to my sister’s house. She was a preacher in Maryville, Missouri. Too far for our empty tank to get to. We again prayed. “Lord, if you want us to get to her preaching engagement we need you help. If you can get our van to Maryville at my sister’s I know my mom is there this weekend and we can borrow money to drive the rest of the way.”
But we didn’t even have enough gas to get half way to Maryville, let alone the entire trip. Still, I pulled into my sister’s driveway and we went inside her house and I announced, “We’re here an we’re not leaving until you give us money to go away. Because we are out of gas.” We ultimately made the preaching engagement an my wife told the story of how she got her preaching robe and felt called to ministry – I don’t remember the scripture. We could look it up if we knew the date because we preach from the lectionary. (I think there is something powerful in so many churches preaching, praying, and teaching the same Bible passages throughout the world on the same day.) But somehow, the scripture fit the story. Another coincidence?
I went to the men’s breakfast at my church – first one I attended – and I assumed my liturgist Paul would offer the prayer since he organized it. So I didn’t bring a Bible. He said they always start with a short message, a Bible reading, and a prayer. So, I gave a short talk on faith and God. Then I said, I didn’t bring my Bible but I see there is one on the piano so I will use that. I picked it up an saw there was a bookmark in it. Not having planned to read anything I just opened the bookmark. My eyes fell on the passage and again, it fit perfectly with my talk and I read it. Another coincidence?
My wife and I had trouble conceiving. I was damaged in more than my back when I was in the army, a laser on a TOW gunnery range reduced my fertility…its the only thing I can figure out. I had two sons but my second wife and I were in our thirties when we married. We wanted more kids…together. We finally asked God in prayer. To get an answer we opened the Bible randomly and it spoke of Abraham’s wife have a child in her later years. An answer? Or coincidence.
Later we still had no child. We asked again. Prayed that God would direct us to an answer. It said you will have a son and you will name him Nathaniel. OK, we asked twice and got Abraham’s promise of children and a promise of a son named Nathaniel (did I mention I did the prayer and Bible answer thing for my first failed marriage and the passage described a bad marriage that went all wrong? – I decided paying an opening the Bible randomly was a silly way to answer questions in your life and married her anyway. We divorced seven years later.)
Now I am 65 and my wife is 62 and we have a 24 year old son named Nathaniel.
When my adult-onset asthma became so bad that it interfered in my ability to minister to God’s children as a pastor, in my daily prayers I asked that he remove this burden from me so that I could better build the Kingdom of God. After a month of prayer and meditation it became clear that something had happened. I hadn’t used my inhaler at all. For two years I carried my inhaler with me for emergencies and never had to use it. Despite the fact that doctors had told me that adult-onset asthma was incurable. Childhood asthma can sometimes be grown out of but their best advice at the time was to suggest I move to Arizona or a desert where the dry environment might help my respiration. 25 years later my asthma has never returned.
Other places I have spoken of encounters with demonic creatures I have banished and my lovely young blonde friend who had a cancerous bulge in her neck. It was deadly and had to be removed. She was supposed to go back to Texas and be operated on. There was some chance it could damage her ability to speak or death, there was also the question of if they could get everything. Remember, she was going to seminary, as a pastor your voice is important.
“Do you mind if I pray for you?” I asked and she said, ‘please do.’ So, I had the group of students who were there gather around her and join hands while she stood in the middle, I prayed and had given directions (everyone was studying to be a pastor remember,) that when I was done, I would squeeze the hand of the person on my left. If they wanted to, they could pray and when they were done, they could squeeze the hand of the next person. If they didn’t feel moved to pray, they could just squeeze their hand. When it got back around to me, I would close the prayer. So, we prayed and she headed back to Texas. Now, this person had quite a bulge on their neck marring this lovely woman’s beauty. Worse than that it was deadly. I remember it as looking like she tried to swallow a tennis ball and it was lodged in one side of her neck. (I may be exaggerating. It may have been more the size of a golf ball, but it looked big on her beautiful thin neck.)
She came back all smiles. I asked her how it went and this is what she told me (it was like 30 years ago so forgive me if I have some details wrong.) I cannot give you a direct quote, so I won’t use quotation marks, but to my memory this is what she said.
I went down there not knowing what to expect. They did a pre-surgical X-ray t see if anything had changed. Then they did the battery of tests again, and I didn’t know why. It kind of worried me. Then the doctors came in and profusely apologized. They said my X-Rays must have been switched because there was no trace of cancer at all. The bulge was gone and there was nothing in the tests to indicate cancer. She told them about the prayer we did for her and they smiled their smile of scientific superiority as you would when you child told you about their invisible friend. But we know the truth and what really happened don’t we…she told me.
So lets come to today. Or two months ago, actually. My back disability has suddenly spiked and was causing pain that prevented me from even getting dressed by myself on some days. I spent entire days only getting up and going to the bathroom using my cane or walker. Finally, last Sunday night I couldn’t take the pain anymore.
Mind you I have had two surgeries (a appendicitis and a liver transplant after Covid seemed to attack my liver,) both where I was told to ask for pain relievers when I needed them. I have also been hospitalized for my back injury on 3 occasions. Monday about 3 in the morning the pain became so great I just layed in bed waiting for my wife to wake up so she could drive me to the VA Emergency Room. I hurt too much to get dressed, even wth help so I went in my pajamas. At the time I was taking 3 medications (counting tylenol and 2 prescription meds,) had a medicinal rub, and also a lidocaine patch on my back and it was not giving any noticeable relief. My son had to help me up out of bed and out to the car and I used my walker to get into the hospital taking very small steps. Nothing happened that should have set it off – at least not that I could see.
Now quoted from what I wrote on SabersEdge:
Everyone has pain in their back but mine is a compounded situation that cannot easily be operated on. Right now, I can walk. If the operation doesn’t work out, I won’t be able to. The VA doctors advised me to endure the pain as long as I can before resorting to surgery because that would be a dice roll. I’m not asking for Sympathy, it’s just the facts. My back pain is a serious disability and not your run of the mill “back ache.” I won’t go into all the details but there are three specific issues and together they are relatively inoperable, so I just live with the pain. Actually, since it happened when I was 24 I really don’t remember what it was like not to hurt.
After I injured my back in the motor pool of 3rd Squadron, 8th Cavalry, I was taken my military ambulance to Heidelberg Army Hospital and was in the hospital for a few days. That was the first time I had to go to the hospital for my back. Not counting emergency room visits I have been hospitalized for it 3 times now. So, again we are not talking just ” a backache” here (since everyone has back pain most people who don’t know me are quick to say something stupid like, “Yeah I hurt my back golfing once and I just pushed through it.”) No one knows what another person is going through.
In fact, when I went in for my appendicitis and later for my liver transplant surgery, they told me to “ask for pain meds” when I needed it. (Now, as I said, no one can really know how bad someone else’s pain is, even when you say what level of pain you are at to the nurse it is subjective. However, for surgeries I feel that doctors and nurses probably have an idea of how much pain and average person can take and how many meds they normally use in recovery.) So far, I have had five separate nurses and/or doctors who looked at my chart after a surgery and commented something like: “You seem to have an unusually high tolerance for pain.” So, I tell them I hurt my back when I was 24 and have been in pain to one degree or another every day of my life since. I actually don’t remember what it felt like not to be in constant pain.
As I said, I’m not looking for sympathy here, I’m “just sayin’ ” When I got out of my liver transplant and was in Intensive Care we got to where they wanted me to use a “potty chair” by the bed. The nurse said, they wanted me to try to use the chair if I could. I was to try to get off the bed, if I could, and use it and if I needed help, she and an orderly she brought with her would help me (I’m not a small man, over six foot 226 lbs.) So, very, very slowly (and stopping to catch my breath on the edge of the bed because the pain made me miss a breath or two,) I got up took one step to the chair, sat down and used it and got back in bed.
The nurse looked at me and said, “Wow. I’ve never seen anyone able to get up and use the poddy chair this soon after transplant surgery.”
“Well, you told me to try to do it on my own so I did,” I answered.
“Yeah, you were supposed to try. I’ve just never seen anyone actually able to do it without help.”
“Well, I was a United States Army Drill Sergeant and no stranger to pain. I spent much of my life telling people to push through and that they could do more than they thought they could. I expect nothing less from my own actions. No Brag, Just Fact.”
So, Wednesday, when I was doing my devotions I asked God to remove my back pain. I told him that if I needed that thorn in my side (or back,) to teach me something I haven’t learned then I will persevere to the best of my ability but that it was seriously affecting my ability to live, take care of my family, and also maintain the websites I felt he wanted me to maintain.
When I finished the prayers, readings, meditaions, and then practiced the discipline of my daily rosary. When I finished I smelled Roses. My hands smelled of roses and so did my bathrobe and pajamas. Now, I am a man of 226 pounds and over six feet tall. I guarantee you I do not naturally smell of roses before my shower (if you can its probably better to take a shower before devotions but I hurt so bad I was thinking of skipping it that day – as I had Monday. Roses are a sign in Catholic Theology of the presence and favor of Mary the Mother of Jesus and the rosary itself was presumably given by Mary to humanity. I say it every day toward the end of my devotions. My pain was gone…well mostly. It was replaced with a “tightness” that I don’t consider to be pain after the other pains I have felt. So, in one hour of devotions my pain level went from 8 or 9 to 2. As of the time I write this, on Saturday it has not returned at the debilitating level that it was earlier this winter and definitely not at the extent I went to the Emergency Room. I don’t know if this is permanent or temporary but either way I give credit to God for the blessing of delivering me from pain.
Next time, unless God gives me something else to write about, I will share what I do for my daily devotions.
We have gone on long enough but there are many more times God seems to have intervened in my daily life. Maybe I am an idealistic fool but I really don’t think so. I believe it is God and, as I have said, it is not because I am a saint. God loves all of us. But don’t even bother if your reason for drawing close to God is because you “want stuff.” God knows what is in our hearts and he will not be mocked or used. If you try to use God as your personal Santa Clause your life may go worse than it was before.
God is real, he cares for us, he will speak to us in a myriad of ways if we are open to hearing him, and he invites us into a living and active relationship with him. Seek God, and you will find Him.
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