Crockpot Miracles

I really prefer a big instantaneous miracles. I prefer the one big prayer that will fix everything immediately. I pray and the marriage is healed, the disease is gone, the mountain is moved and the addiction disappears. Miracles solve messes quickly, seamlessly and painlessly. Why can’t I just have more miracles?

As I look back over 35 years plus in ministry I realize that most of the changes that have happened in people’s lives have been more like a crockpot than a microwave. It’s been hundreds or even thousands of insignificant acts, seemingly insignificant prayers and what looked like insignificant decisions that brought about real change. For instance, the really great, wise and faithful leaders that I know didn’t get that gift or that character on the day they discovered Jesus but that character came as a result of many small commitments and decisions. In the crockpot of their heart the raw ingredients slowly became something extraordinary. My life is surrounded by Godly leaders who have learned to trust God immensely.

In Romans 5:3 Paul says, “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” We often pray for miracles to avoid problems and trials but Paul reveals that those trials actually develop character. Maybe miracles shortcut God’s work of character development! I love to hear stories about miracles and events where God showed up in a big way and did the unbelievable but I have to say that I’m more impressed with the testimony of the one who never got the miracle but was faithful anyway. Crockpot miracles are still miracles, they just take a lot more time.

I’m never going to stop asking God to do miracles but let’s be real, when a marriage is falling apart God is probably not going to download an entirely new marriage manual into that couple’s lives and things become instantly better but he probably will send his Spirit to convict them of their sin and to repent of their sinful behavior and then begin to make incremental changes in their lives. In time, through prayer, through submission, by implementing a new set of Godly values, by celebrating successes and getting up after failures that marriage can be saved. That is when a test becomes a testimony. That is when a mess becomes a message. That is a crockpot miracle.