A God of Miracles

Today I read 3 Nephi 29 and 30. I generally like to just read one chapter and talk about it, but chapter 30 of 3 Nephi is only 2 verses long. The neat thing about both of these chapters is that they are written to us, the people in the latter days.

Moroni covers the same topic later in the final chapter of the Book of Mormon but here Mormon spends some time talking to us and letting us know that God is a God of miracles and that He does not turn to the left or to the right. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. That is really important if you think about it.

What good would a God be that could not be relied upon? How could we have faith in Him? How could we trust anything in the Scriptures? We couldn't and we would be stuck with a view of God much like the Greeks had of a several gods that were cruel and merciless. The fact that God does not change His mind and does not deviate even a little bit is a comfort and lets us know that we can rely wholy upon Him.

Now, having said as much we must now spend a few moments talking about the times that God has supposedly changed His mind. I submit to you that God has not changed His mind and that all He does is part of His plan. Let's look at a few examples. How about the lost 116 pages? God at first told Joseph no, twice! But on the third time He allowed Jospeh to loan Matrin Harris the pages. Sounds kind of like He changed His mind. Or perhaps He was using it to show forth His wisdom and power over the devil. As long ago as 592 B.C. God was aware this event would happen and commanded Nephi to create a second set of plates to record the spiritual things and record their leaving Jerusalem even though Nephi knew perfectly well that his father had already recorded it. Sounds to me like it was all part of the plan.

Here's a big one, the priesthood being able to be held by all worthy males regardless of race. Some people might look at that story and say that God changed His mind since he kept telling the prophets, especially Spencer W. Kimball, no. Or was it merely that the church and even the world was not ready for it to happen at that time? Think about the state of America in 1830. People with black skin were slaves in most states and treated as subclass citzens even if they were not slaves outright. Now, imagine what would have happened to the fledgling church if they had announced the doctrine of all men being equal in the sight of God and given them the priesthood. I truly believe that all the country would have united against the church and erradicated it off the face of the earth. God waited until after all the battles over the rights of all men were fought here in America. Until America stopped looking at men and women with black colored skin as subpar to those who had white colored skin. God did not change His mind, rather America had to change its mind.

Now that you are convinced that God does not deviate to the right or the left, let's talk about miracles. If God does not change yesterday or forever, why would He suddenly stop performing miracles? He wouldn't, unless as in our examples above, mankind had changed. As Moroni states in his own book in the Book of Mormon later, if miracles have ceased it will be because no one is left to perform them, no one believes. I was once asked by an aethiest friend why I believed in God and my answer was that I had seen too much. And I truly have, I have seen miracles and events happen that are truly miracluous. I have had my life spared in ways that defy all physics and should not have happened. And yet they did and I am still here before all of you writing this. I think our definition of what a miracle is has changed is all. We keep wanting to see someone walk on water or turn water into wine. Truly those were miracles. But what about the other miracles in our lives that we see almost daily?

What about the people that are cured of their cancer? What of the people that are in car accidents where the car is destroyed and the climb out totally unscathed? What of a blessing given that states in detail a medical condition the recipient has that the speaker has no background in or no knowledge of? Miracles happen if we know where to look and what to classify as a miracle. God has not changed, we have changed. Our spiritual needs have changed. But as we continue in faith and stive to do what is right, we can be used as an instrument in His hands and we can see miracles happen and perhaps even perform a few. I have, and you can too. Until tomorrow.