A member of the branch of the church in Yogakarta, Indonesia asked me to come and bless his child. As a missionary of the LDS church, I had the priesthood which authorized and empowered me to bless the sick in Jesus Christ’s name. So that evening my companion and I went to his home (a tin roof, one room shack, dirt floor about as big as half a small bedroom) and we blessed the child. He asked that I be the speaker of the blessing. We held the child in our arms and in the name of Jesus Christ blessed it to be healed. We then visited for a few minutes. They served us some sugar water while the child played on the floor.
The father remarked a couple of times about how the child was doing well. I hadn’t really seen the baby before the blessing so I couldn’t judge. We left. The next day the father came back and asked me to come with him to visit other sick neighbors. We visited a sick old man who seemed ready and willing to die. There was a sick woman and one other person we visited. But I didn’t feel right about blessing them to be made well. The old man just wanted to die and I blessed him to be at peace. The woman was rather bitter about her life; there was no seeking of God in her. We kept the visit pleasant and then left.
The healing of this father’s child had him thinking that I had some special power, so we talked. I couldn’t really do more than say that it was his faith and righteousness which had healed the child more than any power I had. So we quit going around trying to heal people and went back to teaching the Gospel.
Miracles do happen. I have seen them and rarely had a part in doing them. But they never seemed to be under my control. There were miracles which accompanied Christ’s ministry. Whenever Jesus did a miracle he would often tell the recipients of the healing not to talk about it. I always took it for granted that he did this because He was a humble modest man. But perhaps there was a better reason.
About miracles ACIM (A Course In Miracles) says: “Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.” And: “Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided. Miracles are natural. When they do not occur something has gone wrong.” And lastly: “The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose.”
Suddenly several things made sense. Jesus never did miracles to induce belief. It was after the faith was there that He did them. They occurred as natural signs of faith in God. Trying to induce belief really doesn’t work. Faith is something that comes from inside us. It is a way of thinking and affects the way we live. It’s an inner choice. Nothing external of our heart causes it. The stories of Christ cause some to humble themselves and to seek the righteousness of God. Others scoff and reject the stories. To illustrate this there was once a discussion about miracles in which one man declared that there were no more miracles from God. Joseph Smith was there and disagreed. After a moment Joseph walked to a woman who was lame and laying his hands on her, healed her. The fellow who had said there were no more miracles at first joined the rest in praising God; but later turned against Joseph and declared him a fraud. People are not brought to God through miracles but through humble repentance.
Why did Jesus instruct people to be silent about His healings? “Miracles are habits…Miracles are natural…” do we jump up and down with excitement over habits? Do we shout about something that is natural? Perhaps Jesus wanted the healed to calm down and accept miracles as their natural inheritance, an expression of God’s love. Be grateful to God, but make no more fuss about His expressions of love than your own.
Making a fuss and a spectacle over a miracle is a way of denying ourselves. We are our Father’s beloved creations. As such we should expect occasional expressions of His love. We only make a fuss over the surprising, the entirely unexpected. Therefore making a fuss over a miracle is either saying that we are not God’s creation (our true reality) or saying that we don’t expect God’s love (which we should.) Jesus’ instructions to people not to talk about His miracles was a way of helping them learn to accept God’s love and who they really were: God creations.
If a miracle comes to or through you, don’t try to use it to change others. They will have to come to the Lord in their own way and time. Love them. Love is a more powerful force for real change than any miracle.