Dwight Fletcher | Miracles require a response

When God speaks to us, we need to respond. When He moves in miraculous ways, He invites us to be part of the process. We have been discussing the miracle that Zechariah received in Luke chapter 1. So, how did Zechariah respond? Did he fall down on his face in praise and thanks to God, burst into song, or lift his hands in victory. No he didn’t! Instead of praise, Zechariah, like many of us when God speaks to us, immediately went into doubt and questioned the ability of God to overcome the natural laws of life. “Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” Luke 1:18 (NIV).

The real question is ‘Why was Zechariah praying for a son if he did not believe it would happen?’ Are we praying for things that we don’t believe will really happen? It’s called unbelief and it is what happens to many of us. For a variety of reasons, when it comes to the miraculous, we doubt even when we are faced with the reality of it. We are sceptical if we see, for example, a foot grow two inches. Our response is, no it must be a trick. If someone gets healed from cancer, we say that it must have been a misdiagnosis.

We are believing wrong doctrine if we believe that God doesn’t do these things anymore. We reach for intellectualism when it is not logical. We are in the Kingdom but we are not in agreement with the way the Kingdom works. God describes Himself as the all-powerful God, and our doubt becomes a stumbling block for the miraculous to take root and come through in our lives. We can abort our own miracle with the wrong response to what God has said. Our negative pronouncements can kill our miracle.

Zechariah was about to kill his miracle because he refused to believe the words of the angel Gabriel. By his own declaration, he was standing against his miracle. But God in His mercy and desire for the miracle to be fulfilled (John the Baptist to be born) took away Zechariah’s speech. 19 “The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” Luke 1:19-20 (NIV). God would not allow him to voice-activate an abortion of the miracle.

Zechariah’s unbelief reminds us that we are, too often, slow to believe miracles, signs, and wonders or we doubt them entirely. When John was born, and Zechariah was asked what the child’s name should be, taking up a tablet, he wrote, “His name is John.” Instantly, he was able to speak again.

Miracles, signs and wonders are part and parcel of the Kingdom of God. The Gospels and the Book of Acts are miracle-dense and miracles, signs and wonders punctuate the scriptures everywhere. The Christmas story is loaded with them and is a clear reminder that God intervened in the world miraculously then and wants to do the same in our lives today.

Miracles seem easier to believe at Christmas but the truth is that they happen all year round. If we’re asking God to move miraculously in our lives, we must expect His answer and not try to abort it by uttering words of unbelief.