The Coffmans have arrived safely in Colorado. We have settled into my parents' house while we look for a home of our own on the south side of Denver, so I am living with my parents for the first time since moving to college in 2002. They will probably let me stay out as late as I want these days, though my mom will probably still call to check on me if I am out past dark.
I have been preoccupied with the logistics of the move and have had little time for reflection or writing. So, I am pawning off someone else's thoughts on you. I am rereading Tim Keller's book The Reason for God and here is what he has to say about miracles:
"The most instructive thing about this text [the stories about Jesus' resurrection] is, however, what it says about the purpose of Biblical miracles. They lead not simply to cognitive belief, but to worship, to awe and wonder. Jesus' miracles in particular were never magic tricks, designed only to impress and coerce. You never see him say something like: 'See that tree over there? Watch me make it burst into flames!' Instead, he used miraculous power to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and raise the dead. Why? We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that he has power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. Jesus' miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming." (99)
I find that beautiful, the distinction between suspension and restoration. One day our Lord will make all things new. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Showing posts with label Miracles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miracles. Show all posts
26 June 2014
18 April 2014
Getting to Know GW (2)
(This post is part of a series about our first president that I am writing as I work through Ron Chernow's epic one volume biography of the man. If you find yourself like me, knowing next to nothing about Washington and his life then I invite you to read on.)
I remember as a kid some legend of Washington as almost impervious to bullets. I remember some story of an Indian chief instructing his warriors to take aim at Washington and somehow missing. It is the kind of story that smacks of myth-making, a piece of just-too-goodedness. It is also true.
I wrote last time of Washington's disastrous defeat at Fort Necessity, in what was to come to be the first real skirmish of the French and Indian War. Washington was a part of another devastating defeat in that conflict in the summer of 1755. Washington was under the command of General Edward Braddock. Braddock would be a member of a growing list of British military that underestimated the difficulties of waging war in America.
French and Indian forces met the British at what became known as the Battle of the Monongahela. The British, who outnumbered the French by 2 to 1, were absolutely routed. By the evening of the ninth of July, the British forces were in full retreat back up the road they had just built. Braddock would die from wounds sustained in battle during the retreat.
Braddock had been injured early in the battle and Washington had taken over default command, riding the length and breadth of the British lines and trying to rally his men. Of the 300 British casualties, over 100 were officers. The opposing forces trained their guns on Washington. Upon retreat he noticed four bullet holes in his coat and had two horses he had been riding shot out from underneath him.
Fifteen years later he met one of the chiefs who had been fighting with the French at Monongahela. He told Washington that he had specifically ordered his warriors to fire directly at Washington, to no effect. The chief had concluded that some great spirit had protected Washington and would guide him to momentous things in the future.
At the very least, this story ought to train the skeptic in each of us to quiet it down a bit. Sometimes things happen that are too good to be true.
I remember as a kid some legend of Washington as almost impervious to bullets. I remember some story of an Indian chief instructing his warriors to take aim at Washington and somehow missing. It is the kind of story that smacks of myth-making, a piece of just-too-goodedness. It is also true.
I wrote last time of Washington's disastrous defeat at Fort Necessity, in what was to come to be the first real skirmish of the French and Indian War. Washington was a part of another devastating defeat in that conflict in the summer of 1755. Washington was under the command of General Edward Braddock. Braddock would be a member of a growing list of British military that underestimated the difficulties of waging war in America.
French and Indian forces met the British at what became known as the Battle of the Monongahela. The British, who outnumbered the French by 2 to 1, were absolutely routed. By the evening of the ninth of July, the British forces were in full retreat back up the road they had just built. Braddock would die from wounds sustained in battle during the retreat.
Braddock had been injured early in the battle and Washington had taken over default command, riding the length and breadth of the British lines and trying to rally his men. Of the 300 British casualties, over 100 were officers. The opposing forces trained their guns on Washington. Upon retreat he noticed four bullet holes in his coat and had two horses he had been riding shot out from underneath him.
Fifteen years later he met one of the chiefs who had been fighting with the French at Monongahela. He told Washington that he had specifically ordered his warriors to fire directly at Washington, to no effect. The chief had concluded that some great spirit had protected Washington and would guide him to momentous things in the future.
At the very least, this story ought to train the skeptic in each of us to quiet it down a bit. Sometimes things happen that are too good to be true.
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