Daily Devotional for October 6

 

October 6                                                       Matthew 8: 1-17

Sunlight dances on gentle waves. Salty sea breezes tangle my
hair. My mate's brown arm brushes against mine. I am alive.
I am excited. I believe in miracles.

God's magic still happens. It happens so often that our senses
- miracles in themselves - aren't able to keep up. Try as we
may we can't experience all the wonder around us. We grow
numb to our precious world.

Walking on the beach at sunset, it's easy to believe in miracles,
easy to praise God for the glory of living. The trouble is, most
of our moments aren't spent in such idyllic settings. We rush
through our daily lives being jostled and pushed by others who
are also in a hurry. We struggle with bothersome inconven-
iences, striving to meet human deadlines. And we do it all in
surroundings that bore us with their familiarity.

Not only do we long for miracles, but we want them to be
so dramatic that they can't be ignored. We want them to be
quick, big, and complete. Bang. The miracle has occurred.

But our Saviour fills our daily lives with quiet miracles. We
flip a switch, we have light. We put on glasses, we see. We
dial a phone, and we hear a friend. The fact that the medical
world took centuries to defeat polio doesn't make the victory
any less of a miracle.

"A miracle does not come by lazily waiting for God to do it
all," a Bible scholar says. "It comes from cooperation of faith-
filled effort with the illimitable grace of God." ¹

Some miracles, though, require nothing more of us than that
we open our senses to what God is doing around us. If the
leper hadn't looked at his body, how would he have known
Jesus had cleansed him?

¹ Altered from THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW , Volume 1 (Revised Edition). Translated
with an introduction and interpretation by William Barclay. Copyright @ 1975
William Barclay. Altered and used by permission of Westminster/John Knox Press.
(p. 300)

​

From The Road to Emmaus - An inclusive devotional Edited by Joseph W. Houle

Emmaus House of Prayer - Washington D.C.