What makes you so special, that you get miracles and I don't?

​As I’ve been writing about miracles these past few weeks, I wonder if any of you are thinking, “Just what makes you so special?  Why don’t I have miracles?  Am I doing something wrong?”  I have friends that need supernatural healings, friends that are barren, friends that are struggling in so many areas, and sometimes God’s timing is frustrating and unpredictable.  That said, I believe that our miracles are up to US as much as they are up to God.
 
Let’s examine the scripture.  Jesus’ first miracle was making the water into wine at the wedding – remember?
John 2:1-11.  1 “On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
   4 “Woman,[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
   5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
   6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.[b]
   7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.
   8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”
   They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”
   11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
Several times when I’ve read this scripture, I’ve been irritated by Jesus calling his mother “woman.”  In our culture, that would be totally disrespectful and not tolerated (at least by me)  In that culture, it was not a term of disrespect.  I think one of the most interesting things about this scripture is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, has known since BEFORE he was born that he would be the Savior, and I’m sure she waited anxiously to see what that would look like – what would he do?  How would he act?  When would he reveal himself?  Can you imagine what that would be like?  We all dream of what our children will do – but WOW – your child is the Son of God?  You wonder if she pushed him as a child or if God just shut her up and showed her she needed to be still.
 
In any event, Mary is helping serve at this wedding – weddings in the Jewish culture are HUGE!  One of the neatest things we saw when we were in Israel were the Bar Mitzvah parades that would go through the streets of Jerusalem – we’d be sitting at a café eating pizza (no pepperoni, of course) and through the streets would be this banging and singing and caravan of people with this 13-year-old as the center of their attention – it was extremely cool.  Weddings are probably a multiple of ten of that.  I went to a Jewish wedding once, and I never had so much fun – they did all kinds of crazy things, carrying the 300-pound groom around in the air on a four-legged chair, dancing, laughing, singing – it was great!  So weddings are a huge celebration, and running out of food/drink at an event that big is huge.  You wonder how close Mary was to the people whose wedding it was – was this her best friend and she didn’t want her to be embarrassed?  So interesting that the first miracle of Jesus Christ was food related – seems some things never change, huh? 
 
Anyway, the point I wanted to get to is this:  Mary asks Jesus to do something – he says no, he won’t – she just pretty much forces him into it with her order to the staff, “Do whatever he tells you to do.”  She believed he could and he would do something to fix it – period, end of story.  And he does…..after first saying no, he won’t.  It’s almost like she had seen the “Bewitched” show we used to watch as kids and she just knew he could twitch his nose and make it happen.  It almost makes me wonder if he had done something privately to help the family or to provide for someone and she knew he could do it.  Regardless of all my imaginings, he saw the need, he saw her faith that he would and could meet the need, and he stepped up and did it.
 
Let me ask you:  Have you given up asking for your miracle?  Is your unbelief what’s keeping it from happening?  When Tom and I first got married, he was so close to getting saved, it was just minutes away, I truly believed, or I never would have married him.  He was so interested in my faith and God and the Bible, and had a hunger and desire to know about this thing that gave me so much peace.  The night we got married, our pastor told us that he was leaving our church and he would be gone before we got back from our honeymoon.  We really loved him, and that was devastating news.  What happened after was even more disturbing – long story short, we got a pastor with some very serious problems who eventually was asked to leave, but not without destroying the desire my husband had to meet the Lord.  I’m not blaming it on this pastor, but it was a huge contributing factor that dampened Tom’s interest – sort of like the person who watches all the hypocrites and says if that’s what being a Christian is all about, they don’t want it.  Well, years went by – Tom came to church every Sunday, but stone cold.  Did it because it was the expected thing to do, but I think his mind was a million miles away – see, church was for weak people, people who needed a crutch, something to depend on other than themselves, blah, blah, blah.  His father had ingrained in him that you make your own way by hard work and determination and you depend on no one but yourself. 
 
As the years went by, my frustration and unbelief began to form.  I began to resent him, his bullheadedness and stubborn dependence on himself, and I just knew it was never going to happen.  As a Christian who does not want to be unequally yoked, that unbelief turned into resentment and anger, not the Christian love that the Bible talks about where the wife brings her husband to the Lord through the way she lives.  Oh, yeah, I wasn’t a brat or mean or anything, but inside, I was fuming, aggravated and just burnt up.  There were times God would convict me and I would pray and pray and one time I even came home from church on a Sunday night and apologized to him for being so angry at him for his refusal to even consider exploring a relationship with Jesus and asked for his forgiveness for the thoughts I had.  He looked at me like I had lost my mind – because he had no idea of how much time I spent stewing inside, almost hating him for his stubbornness, the arrogance to think he knew better than God….you get the point.  It wasn’t pretty.
 
To this day, I believe Tom would have been saved possibly years earlier if I had not built up this unbelief in my mind that it just wasn’t going to happen.  It hadn’t happened yet, and the longer it went on, the colder he became, and it was just headed in the wrong direction and wasn’t going to turn around.  It makes me sick to think of what I robbed myself (and him and our family) of by not believing, not seeing how God is bigger, wiser, stronger than anything or anyone!  All the while this was going on, I was seeing miracles in other areas of my life, God was working, was blessing.  He just wasn’t getting Tom’s attention on my time span.  I prayed for burning bushes, for supernatural signs that would knock him over – you name it, I begged for it.  Well, begged might be too big of a word, because see, I would pray for it, didn’t see it happen, quit praying for it, got aggravated, got convicted, prayed for it, on and on and on in this ridiculous cycle.
 
I KNOW that our Lord is capable of the most miraculous things – he CAN heal your broken back, he CAN heal your blinded eyes, he CAN heal that broken marriage, he CAN heal your depressed spirit – but it is up to US.  We MUST believe and we MUST press Him, press Him, press Him.  I have been working a bill through the legislature this session, and if any of you have done that, it basically amounts to becoming a pest and bugging, nagging, reminding, pestering, bugging, nagging, reminding, pestering until you get what you want.  I am so desperate for this bill to pass that I have sacrificed many hours of paid work, many hours of time I could be doing other things, because I have a NEED, and they can fix my problem. 
 
God showed me this week that as we go to the legislature and approach our delegate, and approach anyone who will listen, that is no different than our prayers to Him.  Jesus is our delegate – he stands in the gap for us and is our intercessor and intermediary to the Father.  What is it you need?  Have you given up?  Are you still pestering, nagging, bugging, pestering?  Or have you just taken that first “don’t think so” for an answer?  Is Jesus saying to you, “It’s not time?”  Say back to him, just like his own mother did, “Yes, it IS time!”  When I was healed of my chest mass in 1994, there was no answer I was willing to accept but “I’ll fix it” – nothing was going to stop me from getting this situation in God’s face and keeping it there!  How desperate are you?  How tired are you?  Are you filled with unbelief? 
 
Get on your knees and repent of that unbelief – it is a sin as big as any other – it is defeating and debilitating!  Begin again calling out your problem, believing it WILL be solved, sharing it with others who you know are prayer warriors (share with me – I WILL join you in your plea) – do NOT do what I did, living years with unbelief and defeated…oh, what a waste of time.  When my husband got saved, everything I had believed about him (how he would be so private he would never tell a soul if he got saved, how he’d keep it in a closet and never let it out) was so wrong – God is bigger than my unbelief – he is bigger than my stupid prejudgments – bigger than ALL.  Believe in Him, repeat this scripture over and over if you have to – he first said no, then he changed it to yes and went above and beyond expectations.  Stop quitting – start begging, and do not stop!  He does and will hear you, and He WILL answer you!