Miracles

"Daddy! I know you can heal me!" were the words my seven-year-old daughter yelled at me as she continued to wretch.

My daughter was very sick, her insides violently rebelling against her. She was in an incredible amount of pain, and I felt trapped in a tough situation. My wife had left the house very angry with me, implying that she would have to consider whether our marriage would make it through the night. And now my daughter was sick, I didn't have transportation, and I was stuck in an overcrowded camper that we used as a poor substitute for a house. I felt alone, abandoned by God after all of my exercise of faith.

I had done everything I knew to help her. I had given her a blessing; I had prayed over her. Even after a year of witnessing others perform healing miracles, I felt like I knew nothing in this situation. I tried it all and nothing was working. In that state, I broke down with the overall circumstances in my life and began to cry in front of my daughter. All she kept saying was, "Daddy, heal me! You can do it!"

I couldn't understand why she was so insistent. I had never really talked to her about my studies over the past year, which involved people who could work miracles. My faith in my own ability to pull it off was running low — after all, I already tried what I knew how to do.

It's funny how a Ph.D. can actually work against you when it comes to exercising faith. The knowledge of what can be done and what can't be done scientifically can form an imposing barrier nearly impossible to overcome.

With tears in my eyes, I told her, "I'm sorry, honey, but I can't." It was more than a statement of my lack of faith. It was symbolic of me failing her, failing my family, and failing my wife. It was an admission of defeat, of giving up.

This was when her tone of voice changed noticeably. Instead of the voice of a feeble little girl, she spoke with power and strength, "Daaad! Ask, and it shall be given!" I looked up. I heard in her voice the answer to not only her sickness but also the problems I was struggling with in my life at that time. It was not the voice of my daughter, but the voice of a being of light speaking through her innocent frame.

Even knowing that an angel was speaking to me through my daughter, I was unable to exercise much faith. But I was able to pull together that mustard seed necessary to offer one more prayer. It was a feeble prayer, but I was obedient.

"Father, please heal my daughter. I have tried everything, but you told me to ask and it would be given. In Jesus's name, amen."

I looked up, wondering what would happen. My daughter was still channeling the voice of the angel to guide me through. "Dad, that was nice, and I feel a little better — now try again."

I tried again, this time allowing myself to believe a little more. She responded, "I feel like there is a darkness around my heart, Dad." Curious now, I allowed my prayer to get more specific about the darkness around her heart. Afterward, she said, "Dad, the darkness has moved out of my heart now and is in my stomach." This time my prayer was directed towards her stomach. She said, "Now my stomach feels better, but I just feel empty."

By this point, my faith had increased substantially, and I asked that the love of God be given to her to fill her heart and soul. As soon as I finished my prayer, she literally threw the blanket off of her and leaped up from the bed where she had been lying, and said, "Dad, I feel great! Now let's eat; I'm hungry!"

* * *

Sometimes when we think of miracles, not just the tender mercies or synchronicities in life, but those true life-changing miracles, we think the day for them may have long since passed. It was only those holy individuals of old who had that kind of faith and power, or perhaps there are powerful miracles in our day, but they seem beyond our personal reach — they are the domain of others.

It is the nature of humankind to find reasons why faith does not work. It is the subconscious core of unresolved fears and hurts within the carnal/natural person that denies the possibility that we could experience those types of divine interventions in our lives. More than a million excuses exist to either discount the existence of power in today's world or to believe that only others can access that power.

These limiting beliefs include everything from "God only allows miracles in the most sacred and limited of circumstances," to "it isn't God's will," to "only men with a certain priesthood can work them," to any other excuse under the sun. Perhaps we even tried to exercise faith in the promises of God without ever truly understanding the foundations upon which faith as a principle of power is based. Feeling let down, we made up excuses for why God does not grant miracles in abundance in our day. Whatever the excuse or the reason behind it, it all adds up to the same thing: a complete denial that faith can work in our lives as it has for those of old.

A miracle is generally defined as that which occurs for which we have no rational explanation. There is no limit to the types of miracles that can occur. Although I gave an example of a physical healing in this chapter, there are many more types of miracles being performed in today's world. I have personally witnessed hundreds and heard of thousands more. I have also been blessed to be a participant in the unfolding of a number of miracles. I have not yet decided whether it is more exciting to see a miracle or to be at the center of one unfolding.

While healing was most certainly one of my primary focuses when I was first led to study miracles, I have seen so much more evidence of other types of miracles that have been described in recent near-death experiences. Some who have passed to the other side have seen in vision men and women coming forth on the earth in the near future exercising the power of God in great capacity, changing the nature of matter, having the natural lifetime extended, opening portals to move from one place to another, communicating long distance without the need for technology, having access to knowledge to build beautiful buildings without ever having taken the engineering or math classes that would ordinarily give them that knowledge, conversing in vision or even face-to-face with God and angels, and so many more. It seems like anything that can be imagined has been seen in these near-death experiences, and many of these have matched the biblical descriptions of scenarios leading up to a change in the end times.

As amazing as each of these gifts sounds, I have...