Tag: prayer

SURPRISED BY THE UNEXPECTED

Blog 127
July 29, 2019

car crash

MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

You might also want to look at the widely read blog on the MIDDLE EAST from Robert L. Wise, Ph.D. which features weekly updates on little known facts about Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, countries where he has traveled and worked.

SURPRISED BY THE UNEXPECTED

In today’s world, miracles are certainly the unexpected. However, what they produce is also often unexpected. My encounters with people who experienced divine interventions is that they also discovered there is a side effect that is part of what changed their life. Only later and in retrospect do they realize that their heavenly Father was directing an even greater change in their life than they realized at the time they received a special touch of grace.

Joe Bickerman had such an experience.

Joe and a companion were zooming down the freeway and had just gone under and overpass when an explosion rocked the entire highway complex. The blast seemed to come from overhead. Because they had just passed under the heavy concrete roadway, Joe’s immediate thought was that a truck had run into the guardrail. An enormous greenish-orangish cloud began to settle over the entire highway system, making visibility impossible. A truck carrying liquid ammonia had burst into flames.

Suddenly, an enormous ripping noise filled the car. A tearing sound signaled that some piece of flying metal had cut off the back end of their vehicle. Fires started to spring up. The highway filled with debris. The destroyed vehicle finally slid to a screeching halt. The back end of their car was long gone.

Later when the highway patrol investigated the situation, Joe had to admit they were going 57 mph in a 55 mph lane. The officer explained that 2 mph difference saved their lives. If they had been going only 55 mph, they would have been killed. Two extra miles made all the difference.

You might argue that this wasn’t a miracle, but a chance of fate. Joe wouldn’t agree. He was convinced that the hand of God had saved him for some reason. Joe began analyzing his life. If God had saved him from disaster, it had to be for some purpose. What could that be?

As he was recovering, Joe became aware that a high percent of financial awards for damages given through the legal system were never collected. People sometimes ran; people just didn’t pay up. Often attorneys didn’t want to go through the struggle to make the prosecuted pay. As Joe became aware of the problem, he realized he knew how to help injured folks get the money owed them. He has spent the rest of his life holding seminars for lawyers and lay people as well as guiding the prospective recipients in receiving the funds owned them.

Grateful people believe Joe is a miracle.

Make sure you don’t walk away from an unexpected circumstance and assume it was all just chance. The consequences may prove to validate that God did intervene.

You might find my collection of near-death experiences to be helpful.
CROSSING THE THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY
Revell Books

EACH WEEK WE WILL BE HERE.
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MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

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TOUCHDOWN IN A HOSPITAL

Blog 126
July 22, 2019

football

MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

You might also want to look at the widely read blog on the MIDDLE EAST from Robert L. Wise, Ph.D. which features weekly updates on little known facts about Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, countries where he has traveled and worked.

TOUCHDOWN IN A HOSPITAL

Two things are predictable in Oklahoma in the summer. Football season is about to start and everyone’s attention is focused on which team is going to the top. And it’s hot! You can bet the temperature is headed for 1000. Newspapers run stories about frying an egg on the sidewalk.

High school senior Sam Tignor embraced both football and the heat out there on the practice field in Deer Creek, Oklahoma, on June 28. The weather people said it would be hot, but the heat index shot up and with a worse turn that day that took people by surprise. Out on the practice field getting in shape, Sam got the full intensity of the blazing sun.

With sweat rolling off his forehead, he staggered to the bench and tried to cover his face. Suddenly, he began to vomit. His eyes rolled back in his head. Sam began to convulse and went into seizures. Tumbling to the ground, he passed out.

His coach father Lance immediately recognized how serious the situation was. Sam had to get to the hospital at once. Loading the unconscious young man in the backseat of a pickup truck, they raced to a hospital which turned out to be the only one in the area equipped to deal with such a problem.

The emergency room raced into action. Sam was packed in a high-tech cooling vest. A breathing tube was placed in his throat. Doctors went to work, but soon came out with a grim prognosis. The next 24 to 72 hours were critical. Sam would be in a comma and could go either way. There was a strong possibility that Sam wouldn’t make it. Sam had suffered a heat stroke.

The physician immediately put him on the liver transplant list as his liver was failing with no hope of recovery. An enzyme count of 30-40 is normal, but Sam’s was over 8,000. If he did survive, Sam would need a transplant.

Sam’s grandfather was a minister with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. The word went out in every direction calling on people to pray. His aunt Susan was in touch with groups that prayed. People were praying in Mexico and Africa. Intercessors in the Philippines and other states in America prayed for Sam. Visitors prayed by his bedside as well as total strangers across the world.

After a couple of days, one of the nurses said, “I’ve never heard the doctor use the word ‘miracle’ before. He is suddenly calling Sam “the miracle boy.” His mother Dusti had said earlier, “whether he makes it, or goes the other way, we are still believers.” Now the nurses and doctors were telling her, “You know this is a miracle? Right?”

The breathing tube is gone and his voice returning. Sam will be going home shortly. What happened? When people from all over the world prayed, their intercessions became like a giant power line sending life into Sam’s failing body. Life surged through Sam where previously there had been damage.

Does prayer work? Sam will certainly tell you it does. His recovery is a miracle that kicked the ball right over the goal post!

EACH WEEK WE WILL BE HERE. Find us on line: MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

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SURPRISED BY GRACE

Blog 125
July 15, 2019

hospital

MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

You might also want to look at the widely read blog on the MIDDLE EAST from Robert L. Wise, Ph.D. which features weekly updates on little known facts about Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, countries where he has traveled and worked.

SURPRISED BY GRACE

Kimberly McConnell’s mother called to tell me that Kimberly was facing a frightening ordeal. Kimberly had struggled with drug addiction for decades in addition to being bipolar, a psychological problem. She had just taken an MRI test with a renowned surgeon who found tumors all over her pancreas. The possibility of cancerous growth was high. The surgeon wanted to remove her entire pancreas which would have left her a severe diabetic for the rest of her life. Kimberly was terrified. None of the options were good.

Kimberly’s mother wanted to know if I would talk and work with her daughter. Certainly.

When we began to talk, I realized Kimberly was paralyzed with fear. She felt a vise clamped around her chest squeezing the life out of her. Dread contaminated her rationality. So, we began to work on her anxiety by separating her emotions and her thinking. I discovered her principal concern was a fear of dying. We began exploring I John 5:11. “This is the record that God has given us eternal life…” The goal was to make this promise more than an idea or a belief, but a reality in Kimberly’s life.

She understood.

Kimberly quickly began to allow her thinking to take charge of her feelings. She began to see she could face the next medical tests and biopsies because she had eternal life regardless of what the results said. New stability had come into her life.

The next hurdle was realistically facing her tumors or possible cancerous cells. Long ago, I learned a spiritual exercise of “breathing in” the Holy Spirit. Just like taking a breath, we ask the Holy Spirit to enter us like breathing in air, to move through our body, through our blood vessels, flowing to the exact point of our need. Kimberly began praying in this manner, calling on the Spirit of God to surge through her body and to touch the tumors.

When Tuesday came, Kimberly went to the hospital without fear or dread. She could accept whatever happened … regardless. Her life was now squarely in the hands of God. Kimberly had found a peace that transcended every need. As Philippians 4:4 directs, her thinking was fixed on whatever was good, pure, right, lovely. The peace of God was with her.

The staff put her to sleep to avoid the pain of multiple biopsies. Kimberly went to sleep without fear. The doctor who had first observed the tumors was doing the tests. When she awoke, Kimberly was surprised because there was no pain in her abdomen. In fact, she couldn’t feel where the needles should have punctured her.

“Doctor!” she said. “What happened?”

The doctor had a grin and shook his head. “I saw those tumors for myself when you first came in weeks ago. But I didn’t do the biopsies today because we couldn’t find any tumors. The tumors on your pancreas are gone, simply gone.”

No one was ever more excited than Kimberly. She would not have to face all the possible complications and struggles she had anticipated. Miraculously the tumors had vanished.

What had occurred? As Philippians 4:9 promised that the God of peace would be with her. A miracle indeed!

EACH WEEK WE WILL BE HERE. Find us on line: MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

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AN INTERVENTION IN NATURE?

Blog 124
July 8, 2019

rainstorm

MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

You might also want to look at the widely read blog on the MIDDLE EAST from Robert L. Wise, Ph.D. which features weekly updates on little known facts about Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, countries where Wise has traveled and worked. In an unbiased and politically neutral manner, he reports an objective view of what’s happening.

AN INTERVENTION IN NATURE?

You would find Jeff Brodsky fascinating. He doesn’t wear shoes and goes barefoot everywhere! That’s Jeff’s way of identifying with children he is trying to help. Jeff’s ministry is called Joy International and his mission is to rescue children who are being held in captivity as sexual slaves. He goes all over the world seeking out areas where human trafficking has snatched children and teens from their families, subjecting them to a life of absolute torture.

To date, Jeff Brodsky has assisted a multitude of young slaves find freedom.

I met him at Platte Canyon Community Church in Bailey, Colorado where he is a member. The Brodsky’s live in the Friendship Ranch in nearby Deer Creek Canyon. Recently, the Brodsky’s were on their way to a fund-raising event when a torrent of rain broke out. This summer the mountains have had an extortionary amount of rain storms and this day was the same. The rain came pouring down and would probably drown out their event. The sky had become dark purple with the sun disappearing behind the imposing clouds overhead.

As they rode along, the Brodsky’s reflected on the fact that their heavenly Father created the heavens and the earth. Certainly, God was the final word in what happened in the weather. Why couldn’t they pray for a break in the storm? Wasn’t it possible to ask Him to clear up the dreary situation?

There are stories in the Old Testament of prophets calling for a drought to punish wicked rulers and rain stopped for years. Elijah called for all dew and rain to halt. (I Kings 17:1) When the prophet Elijah prayed again after he had performed the work of the Lord, the rains came. (I Kings 18 41- 45) In the plagues that fell on Egypt, Moses seemed to have control over nature. (Exodus 5) Was that still possible?

The Brodsky’s called out for the Lord to open the sky. Immediately, the clouds parted and the sun came shining through. They were astonished! God had almost instantly responded to the prayer. The rain ended

Can such be? It obviously was!

Most people will find such stories unbelievable. They would never pray for such a thing…. And that’s probably why they don’t see it happen. They don’t take dominion as the book of Geneses suggests they should. Jeff Brodsky did. Divine intervention followed.

It’s worth thinking about.

EACH WEEK WE WILL BE HERE. Find us on line: MIRACLES NEVER CEASE!

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