"When You're Hoping for a Miracle" in American Sign LanguageSample

Miracles Always Come from Unexpected Sources
By Rick Warren

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” (Isaiah 55:8 NLT)

Most of us have some need in our lives that we want met. And many of us try to figure how to get them fulfilled. You may be looking around saying, “Maybe God could do it that way” or “Maybe I could help God along with this” or “Maybe I could give a suggestion here.”

You’re trying to manipulate God, and it doesn’t work!

The source of a miracle will not be where you think it’s going to come from. It’s always unexpected.

God told Abraham that he was going to have a son, and that son was going to be the father of a great nation. Abraham was nearly 100 years old and had a little trouble believing God’s promise. So he took matters into his own hands and had sex with a woman who wasn’t his wife, and they had a son named Ishmael. But God said, “No! That’s not the one I promised. That’s the one you came up with using your plan, but that’s not my plan. My plan is I’m going to use your wife Sarah and do a miracle long after she’s capable of having children.”

The way you want to meet the need in your life is not the way God wants to meet the need in your life. Your way is second best. God’s way is always best.

If you could understand God, you’d be God. But you’re not! Let me give you a little stress reliever. Repeat this 10 times: “God is God, and I’m not.” Isaiah 55:8 says, “’My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine’” (NLT).

The path to a miracle is always through uncomfortable territory. The source of a miracle always comes in an unexpected way.

So what do you do when you’re on this road? You don’t fret. You don’t fear. You don’t try to figure it out.

You just have faith. You trust God, and say, “I don’t know how God is going to do it, but he will do it.” If God tells you to do it, even if it doesn’t make sense, you do it. Even if going in that direction, or to that location, or to talk to that person doesn’t make sense, you simply obey God and do what he tells you to do. And then, you get ready for a miracle.

Talk It Over

What are you looking at as the source of your expected miracle? Or, is there a person you’re looking to?

How do you think God wants you to show your faith in him to provide your miracle?

What is God telling you to do that doesn’t make sense but that you know you should obey?