There is a kind of wonder that the world does not want us to have. A deep, holy awe at the power and presence of God. So one of the questions worth asking is: what robs us of that? What is robbing me of being awed and amazed by God? And while there are plenty of answers, one stood out above the rest. What robs me of being awed and amazed by God is my subtle unbelief, specifically in God's ability to do miracles, in His ability to be the miracle worker.

A Room Full of Wonder

We all struggle with this from time to time. But there is a story from a book called Jesus Mean and Wild by Mark Galli that has stuck with me for years. I honestly cannot remember what any other part of the book was about, but this story got to me.

Galli was a pastor in Sacramento when a group of refugees from Laos sought asylum in the United States because their people group was under oppression. They escaped their country and arrived in Sacramento, and a church agreed to sponsor them, to support them and help them settle. Most of them, if not all, came to know Jesus Christ. After attending the church for just a few months, they approached the pastor and asked if they could become members.

Recognizing they had a very basic understanding of Christianity, the pastor suggested that their entire community come together so he could take them through the Gospel of Mark in a Bible study. He wanted them to really know what their faith was about and what being committed to a church looked like. They happily agreed.

Galli writes, "Despite the lack of Christian knowledge, or maybe because of it, the Bible studies were some of the most interesting I've ever led." When they read the passage in Mark where Jesus calms the storm, the wind, and the waves, Galli began the way he usually did with more theologically sophisticated groups. He told them the story of Jesus calming the storm and then asked, "What are the storms in your lives?"

They looked at him with puzzled expressions. So he elaborated. "We all have storms, problems, worries, troubles, crises, and this story teaches us that Jesus can give us peace in the midst of those storms. So I ask again: what are your storms?" Again, puzzled silence.

Finally, one of the men hesitantly asked, "Do you mean to say that Jesus actually calmed the wind and the sea in the middle of a storm?" Galli thought the man found the story hard to believe, and not wanting to get distracted by the problem of miracles, he replied, "Yes, but we should not get hung up on the details of the miracle. We should remember that Jesus can calm the storms in our lives."

Another stretch of awkward silence followed. Then another man spoke up: "Well, if Jesus calmed the wind and the waves, He must be a very powerful man." And all the people around him began to nod their heads vigorously, chattering excitedly to each other in their own language.

Galli writes, "Except for me. Everyone in that room was filled with awe and wonder." He finally acknowledged, "Yes, Jesus is a very powerful person. In fact, Christians believe He is the Creator of heaven and earth, and thus, of course, He has power over the wind and power over the waves." He admits this simplistic answer would not have gone over well in the more sophisticated congregations he had been a part of. It did not go over well with him, either, until he was confronted with his own unbelief.

He finishes this way: "The reasons for that are complex, but I think one is that the power of Christ frightens us, and so we'll do anything to avoid it and avoid facing it as an ongoing reality, much to our loss."

Don't Bypass the Miracle

This struck me deeply because as I read it, I thought, he is talking about me. He is talking about the times I hedge my bets in my prayers, where I do not extend my expectations too far because I do not want to be disappointed when God does not come through. Where I remove the miracle from the miracle story so I can make it metaphorical about my own life.

Jesus did not calm the wind and the waves so that 2,000 years later we could apply it to our anxiety. He did it that day to prove that He has power over the wind and the air. That is the miracle. Now, for us today, we can look at it and say: if the man can stop wind and water and command it, then yes, He can speak to my circumstances. But we do not want to bypass the miracle. The miracles are where the wonder is. When Jesus walks on water, celebrate that He walked on water. That is the miracle. That is what the story is about.

This is the subtle work of the enemy, to almost declaw us and take the power away from Christianity by telling us we can believe part of the story, but it is not really the whole story. The fact is, our faith relies on a man coming back from the dead. That is what it relies on. And what is that? It is a miracle. It is supernatural. You cannot take the supernatural out of Christianity or you have just got religion.

He Is Still in the Business of Miracles

So the question becomes: is God still trying to amaze me today? Is He still working to inspire and sustain my wonder and amazement? Because He is still active. He is still involved. He still wants you to be inspired.

The very first thing that came to mind as I studied this was that He continues to raise the dead to life, because He does real resurrections. Not just metaphorical ones, but real ones. He still raises the spiritually dead to life, absolutely, but He can still raise the physically dead to life, too.

I have some friends, my closest friends in the world. My best friend Jason texted me one morning and said, "My wife and two daughters have been involved in a horrific car accident. Please pray." My wife and I reached out to other family members, and all we heard was, "It's bad." So we got plane tickets and flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they lived. We walked into a hospital to see my wife's best friend Shannon in a hospital bed. She had stickers on her head that read "no skull" because the accident had been devastating. A semi had T-boned them and crushed the vehicle.

Shannon sustained significant head trauma, and they had to remove parts of her skull to allow her brain to swell. She was brain dead. There was no activity. Their older daughter was not responding well either; she was seven years old. The four-year-old, they really believe it was an angel that brought her out of the car, because she only suffered a concussion.

I remember being there for days in the hospital, reading Scripture over Shannon, praying over her. There was very little response. It felt incredibly heavy. But Jason, man, he is such a man of God. He just continued to pray and believe.

A Night of Worship and a Word from God

His pastor came to him and said, "I know this is going to seem weird, but I think you need to come to our worship night tonight. I think you need to get out of this hospital room and just come worship God." So Jason went. I stayed at the hospital with Shannon's dad, and I watched doctors come in with vise grip clamps. They put them on all her fingers and all her toes. It looked so painful, and she was not flinching or moving. No brain activity. I asked the doctor what they were looking for. They said, "We're looking for anything, and we're seeing nothing. People don't come back from this."

I sat with that. Her dad sat with that. We thought Jason would be back soon, and we did not know what to tell him. They had just told us it was over.

But Jason had been spending time in the presence of God, singing about a miracle-working God. When he walked back into the room, he said, "Oh, you would not believe the night I've had." We said, "You wouldn't believe the night we've had." And he just looked at us. He was filled with such authority in that moment from being in God's presence and worshiping with a couple thousand believers at his church. He said, "Guys, you're under a cloud right now. You've got to get out of this room. This room isn't where the truth is." He inspired us. He said, "We are not going to believe what they have to say. My wife is going to live and not die. That's what God told me tonight."

A Miracle, Ten Years Later

And I can tell you, ten or eleven years later, Shannon is alive. It was a long journey of recovery. She spent the entire first year not saying a word. She had to relearn how to walk, how to talk, how to swallow water, how to eat food. And we took her to the Whitewater Center yesterday, and she did the high ropes courses.

Their daughters have zero indication of any brain trauma or injury at any point in their lives. God did a miracle in their life. He did a miracle in their story. Why? Because He is still in the business of doing miracles. He still raises people from the dead. He still heals people of cancer. He still helps women who doctors say cannot get pregnant, get pregnant. These things still happen. It is what He does.

Creation, the Spirit, and an Invitation to Wonder

God also amazes us through His creation. His creation invites us to wonder. Spend a little time staring out at the ocean or up at mountains, and be amazed by Him.

And He amazes us through the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us and works through us. There are moments, even this week, where I got to be a part of things and thought to myself, "I'm not that good. How did I get the privilege of being involved in that?" Because the Holy Spirit was working through me, and it creates amazement in me. It creates awe in me. When God gives me just the right thing to say at the right time, or when He brings somebody to mind and I think I am supposed to call them, and I do, and they say, "It's the weirdest thing that you called me right now. Could you pray for me?" That is awe. That is wonder. And He invites us on that journey.

If you want to experience that wonder and amazement for yourself, you can. The invitation is open. The God who calmed the storm, who raised the dead, who still speaks through His Spirit today, He is not done amazing you. The only question is whether you will let your subtle unbelief keep you from seeing it.