(AI's version of Daphne...)
Do you think the word "fear" or "respect" was the best fit here? Why?
What would YOU feel if you saw someone healed before your eyes through someone else?
Do you look for miracles, stumble upon miracles, pray for miracles, or something else? (Or some kind of combination?)
What do you think of the phrase, "Prayer is active participation in a miracle?"
I like the thought that miracles are toxic. We’ve indeed made them toxic. Maybe awe is the better word these days. How in the hell do we ruin so many words in the name of God? Miracles, evangelism, faith. The list goes on.
I especially love the CPE and exactly what I was meaning. Also, yes, we see miracles in the mundane, like walking outside and seeing the wind blowing and other things like that!
I really like Ashley's use of awe. For me, fear connotes something bad. I recognize that is not always the biblical meaning, but it is my natural impulse. Likewise, I can hear authority figures demanding respect. Therefore, I don't really love that term either. I think awe would be more accurate to how I would feel if I saw someone healed. I don't really love the phrasing of miracles probably my Western impulse. But I don't know how to pray for them, especially when I have many friends with disabilities who have explained that miracles are toxic in their lives. I think of God as being with us in suffering rather than changing our situation. I am unsure what I think of that phrase. I think that prayer is more a connection with God.
I think it really depends on the type of miracle. Another translation i looked at used the word "awe" as well. I've experienced a miraculous healing back in my Evangelical days and I would say it was definitely kind of an almost manic awestruck feeling that I experienced as I worked that story into my testimony narrative. After having done CPE I found that the miracles never quite turned out the way the people wanted. Someone ended up miraculously living a few extra days... unresponsive, on a ventilator, unconscious, and then dying anyway after significant struggle and discomfort in the end (when he could have just died right away without resuscitation, instead, but the family prayed for a miracle and instructed the doctors to enact one). I found it really depressing being around people in the hospital who were praying for miracles because 100% of the time they believed they were failing God or God was upset with them and that was why he (always male god) was withholding a miracle.
I think I tend to see the miraculous every day. The complexity of an ecosystem or individual organism or individual cell is miraculous and just blows my mind. Two human beings committing their lives to each other is miraculous. Six pelicans all diving at the same time like synchronized swimmers - miraculous. Solar eclipse!!! Miracle!! Women's sports right now... MIRACULOUS. My husband says I have childlike wonder 😁
I like the phrase in question 4. At the end of the amazing movie, Bruce Almighty, the phrase "BE THE MIRACLE" is used. When I was in college I made a massive banner that said "BE THE MIRACLE" and I truly try to live by that. It's like what I said in a comment in my Bible study last week... that time i was praying to God "please send someone" and God said "I already did" - God, send ME to be the miracle to someone else. My most treasured memories are those times that I have found intense meaning by how I could make a difference to someone else.