Word for the Week: Believing and Partly Believing
The prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: ‘Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant... Answer me, Lord, answer me.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell.
1 Kings 18:36-37
Elijah prayed for a miracle – a big miracle that would challenge and convince Ahab the King, the prophets of Baal as well as the people. If nothing happened, he would probably be killed and the worship of the one true God might well die with him. When the fire came that evening, and burnt up the sacrifice, the altar and the water soaking it all, it was a very big miracle.
Big miracles – the Exodus, the Incarnation and Resurrection – proclaim God’s glory, vindicate his name and work his purposes. But they don’t happen very often. However, there are many smaller, less public ones. Elijah himself had experienced the inexhaustible supply of oil and the healing of the widow’s son, miracles that also proclaimed God’s glory but at the intimate level of his love for the individual. They happen far more often than we sometimes realise.
In Mark chapter nine a man came to Jesus because he desperately wanted a miracle of healing for his son. Jesus said to him, ‘Everything is possible for him who believes.’ He responded, ‘I do believe. Help me to overcome my unbelief.’ Elijah believed, set up the confrontation, and God delivered. Today God can do big miracles, but he can also do small ones and these we may miss. We too need help to overcome our unbelief, so that our eyes of faith are opened to see the miracles – a terribly damaged relationship restored, a measure of healing, a coincidence whose effects are far-reaching, a job appointment beyond all expectations.
Miracle is a slippery concept. If we know how God did it, the rain pattern shifting a few degrees so there is a drought, for example, is it still a miracle? ‘Elijah’, said James, ‘was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it didn’t.’ So pray, and the rain patterns may shift, the baby be conceived, the cheque arrive. Meanwhile we trust even where we cannot see.
Margaret Killingray
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