Everyday Miracles

Greetings Church Family, and Friends,

As I sat in Dan’s living room last week, listening to Dan and Nathan share how pivotal the “Everyday Miracles” meeting was for them back in 1995—helping them find their places as young men in God—I felt inspired to revisit the transcript and share it with all of you.

As I read through the message, I was struck anew by the conviction, hope, and grace of the Lord, and I trust you will feel the same. May you be blessed by the following message, preached by my dad, Brother Blair, thirty years ago in 1995.

Warm regards,

Asi

Everyday Miracles

Blair Adams
October 29, 1995
Sunday Meeting Transcript

As we talked Tuesday night to the group leaders, we marveled: Jesus had just performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes when He came walking on water to meet the disciples as they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee. But the Bible says they were amazed, for they had not understood the miracle of the loaves and fishes because “their hearts were hardened.” Even more amazing was what they immediately asked Him to do. Remember, He had just performed not only the miracle of the loaves and fishes, but He had also walked on water. Yet they asked Him what miracle He would perform so that they might believe in Him! Can you imagine that?

Yet how many miracles is God performing in our lives that we don’t even see because our hearts are hardened? And so we ask, “What miracle will You perform for us that we might believe?” Yet, as Jesus told them, “You’re not following Me for the miracles but because you ate bread and are full.” He was saying they were not looking for spiritual fulfillment from above, from the source of transcendence, but for natural, material fulfillment from below, from the immanent world.

He could similarly say to us, “You work at the Visitors Center, you’re involved in the crafts, you’re doing writing workshops, you work on the land, you serve in the midwifery—yet still, you’re not looking for the transcendent; you’re just looking for loaves and fishes. But how many miracles occur all around you, and yet you don’t see them?” Isaiah said in the twenty-sixth chapter, “Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness, they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the LORD.” They do not see God’s majesty in their daily lives.

Rediscovering the Miracle

All of this came up in the context of a discussion we had with some Israelis who were visiting with us a week or two ago. They were not first-time visitors. They had come to Rehoboth over ten years ago, and this was their first return trip to visit us. I asked them if they noticed any differences in our fellowship from when they first came. Hesitantly, they offered that there was something we had at Rehoboth that we don’t have anymore.

When I asked what it was, they told us that at Rehoboth, we had a closeness and a sense of the newness of everything that seemed to be missing. They indicated that everything we did back then seemed full and resonant with purpose and meaning, and therefore, it all carried an excitement beyond words.

Later, as we prayed about what the Israelis had said, God revealed the reason to us. I recalled a time at Rehoboth when Brother Mark Pettorini came to my upstairs office in the big lodge building. We were in the midst of our early, and thus far unsuccessful, efforts to train horses to pull farm implements in place of tractors—a grueling, prolonged process that often made us question our direction and methods.

Mark talked about having seen someone’s horses at an exposition, stepping into place over the wagon tongue to be harnessed. He’d seen these horses do this so effortlessly and matter-of-factly, and he said, “Our horses are never going to do that.”

He said something to the effect: “Brother Blair, it’s impossible. We just can’t do this. Someone is going to get hurt. Someone is going to get killed.” I don’t remember precisely what I said in response, but I remember us walking down the stairs together, feeling God’s love. And I remember that we had determined to keep pressing on, at least one more time.

Then I remember the day we decided to again try the horses on the hay mowing—just one more time. Previously, we had always had these grandiose illusions about what we’d do with the horses: “We’re going to cut ten acres today. We’ve got a handle on things now like we didn’t have before. I’m sure we can do it”—that was something of our attitude. We called it “faith.” I went right along with that same attitude, and we never did accomplish our goals.

Try as we might, we’d always end up with broken machinery, piled-up horses, and men in the ditch, or in the creek, or tangled in barbed-wire fences with nearly scalped heads, broken fingers, legs, or jaws, and all sorts of wounds to body and pride. It just never happened. But when it finally seemed all but impossible for us, yet we still pulled the mower out into the field and said, “We’ll just try a couple of swathes again—just to try it one more time—just to make sure we never allow ourselves to give up, just to declare that we are in this for good, all the way, that we’ll never turn back”—then, on just another day of doing that, moving along with little confidence that we’d done anything differently, the results astounded us.

By that time, for us, it was nothing short of miraculous: we did the whole field; then we did another field. And everyone felt the miracle of it rising up within us until we couldn’t hold it in. There was a tangible sense of the grace of God ballooning over the whole ranch. And we wept, cried, and praised God with tears of thanksgiving streaming down our faces as we stumbled through those fields behind the horses and the mowers. And that’s what those Israelis felt when they visited ten years ago—the miracle of it all.

The Israelis said that back then, it felt more like pioneering than it does now. Now, it all seems like old hat. The children have grown up with horse farming, and some think little more of it than we once did of hopping into the car and dashing off to the store or sitting down to a meal at home. Back then, horse farming was impossible for us. So when it finally came, we saw the grace of God in it, and it was so tangible that it made us weep; it made us laugh. Paul said, however, that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable—He won’t take back what He’s given, though we can surely throw them away if we want.

From Gratitude to Complacency

People attain such things by a miracle, walk in them for a while, and then pass them on from one generation to another. The miracles, however, soon become just standard operating procedure—old hat. If those who now move in them look closely at anything, they look more at the gift and their everyday proficiency in functioning in it than at the Giver. They become complacent about it and soon think of it as somehow accruing to their image of competence and expertise. It becomes just something they learned, and they don’t see any grace in it at all.

But those of us who saw it all when it was impossible still remember the grace. We still see the miracle. To you who didn’t see it then, the gifts and callings of God, which came so miraculously but irrevocably to us and have now been passed on to you, seem almost like some natural phenomenon. To us, it was supernatural.

I told the brothers Tuesday night that some of my ancestors, and probably many of yours, came to this country in the 1600s and 1700s. I’m sure some of them, because of the unbelievable hunger and hardship they experienced in Europe, sat down at their tables in this country and ate their food with a deep sense of how miraculous it was to have such plenty. They said their grace and wept as they did, just as we wept when we walked through those fields behind horses laying out windrows of new-mown hay behind the clicking sickle bar. But who could even experience such feelings in our time of plenty—and even of profligacy?

The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable—and so they’re passed on, often to be thrown away by the third generation. We always come to look at the gift instead of the miracle that allowed us to break through the impossibility of our situation. Yet, just as the Israelites in the Bible wept upon seeing the relaid temple foundation, remembering the glory of the first, so too do we remember. Because we treasure the glorious miracle of our beginnings, we weep at what is now missing. We were abased and humbled back then, and it was all so impossible for us.

Over and over, we had to make ourselves vulnerable to failure in order to bring each new thing to pass. So when it came, it came with fear and trembling and with tears of gratitude and thanksgiving. Yet now, that same grace comes to the hard-hearted, and they do not see the majesty of the Lord. There is no miracle in it for them. They only complain about how much they must do to keep pace with the unfolding miracle.

When Grace Becomes Invisible: A Call to Humility

Those of us who go back even further recall the same on East 14th Street, in the slums of Manhattan’s Lower East Side—the spiritual birth of the church back then. We remember its impossibility. We remember its miracle. Coming closer to the present, others remember the same things, such as mastering woodworking. The same is true for some of you in home birth, home education, and music ministry. You can remember when it was all a miracle of grace. It would be no different today if God were to lift His grace from us. Suddenly, those blind to what we now have would finally see where they had truly been standing—in the midst of this present miracle and moment—just as I mentioned in last week’s meeting.

You would see it then—the grace of God. You would talk to one another, saying, “Remember how we felt God’s grace in this event and in that launching of new life in Him? Remember how we felt its power moving here, then moving there? Remember? Do you remember?” And you would say in your hearts, if not with your lips, “Oh, God, I do remember! It was so wonderful, so good.” But now, when you sit secure in all your blessings, you don’t see or feel it. The grace of God has become just an incomprehensible theological abstraction that needs to be “taught on” so you can “understand the doctrine.” You have no regard for the majesty of God in the everyday miracles of your life.

Everything of the kingdom seems to be like that. Praying for the gifts of the Spirit, for gifts of healing, and for all the other gifts—it always comes down to the same place that it did with the horses, or with farming, or with home birth: it always comes to the place of impossibility and great risk: “Someone’s going to get hurt, Brother Blair—we just can’t do this.” That’s why it has to be a necessity, a command that comes internally to the soul and settles in as a conviction—something unbacked by any compulsion except the inner compulsion of truth and love—because otherwise, you won’t do what it takes to press forward into God’s grace. When it comes as a necessity, however, you’ll know it was the grace of God when you fulfill the necessity.

Of course, you may one day again lose your humility of mind, and then you will stop seeing the grace of God in anything you do. The miracles in the everyday will vanish. You will, instead, merely see the gift subsumed within your own person and pride. Yet, if that happens, you will lose the fullness and meaning that carries life beyond the hidden despair of self-centered hedonism and pride. But then, if the grace is lifted, you may learn to see its reality again.

If, for instance, you were to lose Brazos de Dios, the church, your family, your loved ones, you’d see the miracle of the grace in each lost gift, each life, each service, “ministering God’s grace to you in its various forms.” A few people complained about Rehoboth as the hardest endeavor and time of their lives, just as some did on East 14th Street. But when we lost Rehoboth, those same people were the ones saying, “It was the greatest time of my life. It was the very peak. Everything else is dead compared to it, and life now has no meaning.”

The Vulnerability that Brings Miracles

Last Tuesday night, at the group leaders’ meeting, Butch shared about their recent home birth—what it meant to Diane and him, how close they felt to the sisters and the Body, and how they didn’t want it to end. Sister Regina added that more than nine out of ten women in the fellowship who have had a baby, despite the hardship of giving birth, as exposing and vulnerable as it makes them, all voice a similar sentiment as Butch and Diane: “I wish it weren’t over. We felt so close to you all and to each other. I wish it weren’t over.”

We can say such things even after great hardship, pain, and suffering because there’s something within us that wants to go to the edge of our capabilities—and then beyond. We want to give birth within the context of a purpose beyond ourselves, something impossible except for the God for whom all things are possible. Whether it’s a calling, a ministry, or overcoming sin, we want to see the grace of God bring miracles into our lives. But to see it, we must be prepared to make ourselves as vulnerable as a mother giving birth to a baby—vulnerable to risk, pain, suffering, failure, and to others seeing our weaknesses and frailty.

Start giving birth to a greater purpose of God in your life, some function in the kingdom that goes beyond your current abilities, something that pushes you outside yourself. Then watch how many people you come into a relationship with on a deeper level than you ever imagined. However, it cannot be something you can manage with just a little effort and then say, “This is me. I did it,” or, “We did this—me and mine!”

You may know you have certain gifts or talents appropriate to the task, but somewhere along the way, you will see the impossibility of it. You’ll also see all that lies within your character, thinking, and attitudes that make it difficult or impossible for the gift to fully manifest in your life. In some way, at some level, it will be impossible for you.

Human Strength Precludes the Miraculous

You young men who are so gifted, yet so invulnerable, aloof, self-assured, and confident—so perfect in your image and unwilling to give of yourselves, to open your hearts to the lava of God’s burning love—you will never visit those miraculous places where the majesty of God dwells. You may be extremely competent, but you’ll never be a miracle because you do not know what it means to be raw, to hang naked on a cross as someone despised and slandered. If you would ever enter the kingdom of the miraculous in the everyday, you need to repent and die to mere competence, self-assurance, and invulnerability. You must take a bloody journey to Golgotha.

You sit here today, knowing deep down that you need this because you’ve seen others who were once invulnerable, but something happened to them. Now, they’re different. There’s warmth, joy, humility, and a different kind of power in their lives. And you know who is waiting for you, where He went, and that He went dragging a cross—an enormous burden. But you’re afraid to look into His bloody face, beaten, bruised, and broken. It’s not pleasant to see someone hanging from a cross. Yet it is there that you exchange self-confidence for miracles, death for resurrection.

The Time of Jacob’s Trouble

Listen to this scripture:

“Cries of fear are heard—terror, not peace. Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor, every face turned deathly pale? How awful that day will be! None will be like it” (Jer. 30:5–7).

The passage continues:

“‘In that day,’ declares Yahweh Almighty, ‘I will break the yoke off their necks and will tear off their bonds; no longer will foreigners enslave them. Instead, they will serve Yahweh, their God . . . . Do not fear, O Jacob my servant; do not be dismayed, O Israel,’ declares Yahweh. ‘I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their exile . . . . I am with you and will save you . . . . Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you, but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished’” (Jer. 30:8–11).

We read this scripture at the Tuesday night meeting. It paints such a graphic image of vulnerability: men with hands on their stomachs, like women in labor, their faces turning deathly pale. God is breaking a yoke from our necks and opening up a grace if we will step into that place of painful vulnerability to give birth to what we’re called to be. Then we will feel the breaking of the yoke, the lifting of our sense of subjugation—and the subjugation of those we are called to deliver in their exit-birth from this world.

Like any birth, this breaking weighs on our hearts and instills a certain fear. But it is good because it humbles us and sensitizes us to the miraculous all around us. Jeremiah said, “Your wound is incurable” (Jer. 30:12).

It takes something to break us sometimes. The longer we go without breaking, the easier it becomes to think, “Oh, well, that’s me. It’s not so bad. I don’t really need to change that much.” The older we get, the easier it is to accept that attitude and the harder it is for God to bring insight or a Word that opens the door to grace again. Soon, those in His Body who would minister to you come to believe you won’t change. This is a great grief to them and becomes unprofitable for you because your wound becomes increasingly incurable. As Scripture declares, “The leprosy is in the head.”

And so God brings about some providential shaking that breaks the yoke. Jeremiah describes it as “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” It seems more than we can bear, but we’ll be able to bear it—barely so. It will give birth to something in us beyond ourselves if we let it.

Pressing through Pain into Everyday Miracles

All the little trials and ministerings we’re going through now—giving birth to gifts, functions, and character in ourselves, trials and ministerings that we see as so severe but are actually quite mild—will one day seem like nothing. And we’ll be so thankful we gave ourselves to them, allowing them to train us along the way for both greater hardships and greater miracles. So don’t shrink back—give yourself to these contractions so that you can be ready for the big one, the last one, through which you press yourself into the fullness of the kingdom of heaven.

You see it as pain, but God is opening a door of new life for you. He is extending a grace like you’ve never seen before. And you know what the reward is: heaven, forever and ever, with Him and with each other. Jesus said that few will squeeze through this narrow way, few will be saved (Luke 13:23–24; Matt. 7:13–14).

Please believe me when I tell you—it’s never been a popular path, this way of humility and sacrifice and the painful birth of new life. In the urban cultures and civilizations of history, you don’t hear much about this way. It has never been a fashionable religious position. But is there really anyone worth impressing besides God? Whatever is in your heart that you most want, you will obtain. And yes, you can deceive us—you can even easily trick us. But God sees all, and you will get what your heart most desires.

There’s no point in getting depressed or down. That’s simply the flip side of pride, which is so destructive to life’s miracles. Only believing in the right things brings a reward worth anything at all—having faith in God and receiving His grace day after day, even when things don’t look so good, even when they look impossible.

His grace is truly and tangibly here. If you don’t believe it now, you will when it’s taken away. But it’s still here, calling us to something beyond our complacent satisfaction with the fullness of bread and fish. It’s calling us to everyday miracles.

In the end, all our trials, miracles, and moments of vulnerability are God’s way of calling us beyond ourselves—away from complacency and into a life of humility, gratitude, and faith, where His grace empowers us to press through the impossible and live in the wonder of everyday miracles.