Naturally Supernatural Life for Christians

Christianity begins with Jesus. After dying on the cross, he is raised up on the third day, his personality restored, his human faculties intact. His first recorded act is to warmly greet Mary Magdalene. Then he says, “Go and tell Peter and the boys that I’ll meet them in Galilee,” an especially tender sentiment since Peter had three times denied even knowing him. 

By the time the month is out, Christ has met with the disciples and another four hundred people who believe in him. His death and resurrection have turned history upside down. You’d never guess he’d been recently betrayed, interrogated, whipped, spurned, and crucified, busy as he is creating rendezvous with the individuals he loves. 

Now two millennia have passed and Jesus is making rendezvous with you. He calls your name and seeks opportunities to be in touch with you. Do you hear his whisper? Can you feel his warmth?

How do you integrate this Jesus of Nazareth with your life in the 21^st century? Certainly it tests your capability, since a good part of humanity now believes that science and reason are the primary means of acquiring knowledge, understanding human behavior, and explaining the universe. This point of view has made a worthwhile contribution to humankind by revealing natural laws and improving the quality of life.

Yet for the individual in Christ, a graced awareness of heavenly power challenges the artificial distinction made in today’s world between the natural and supernatural—between reason and faith. 

When your baby gets sick, you not only want a good doctor, you want God’s help. When someone you love is dying, you want more than a prognosis of how many weeks are left, you want to bring spiritual comfort to the loved one. When a dire situation has you by the throat, you want Almighty God to intervene and deliver you from evil!

Jesus Christ is the unimpeachable witness that your life matters to God. He is the Almighty Someone who knows your coming and going, and watches over you. “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). And just as the supernatural became natural for Mary and Peter, so the supernatural can become natural for you.

This world belongs to the Trinity. Far from being a Creator who wound up the universe like a cosmic watch and then abandoned it, our God interacts with us all the time.

The life of a colleague of mine, a physician, once sank to an all-time low. She got several years behind in taxes to the tune of five figures, experienced a painful divorce, lost her home, and underwent gall bladder surgery, all within the space of a year. The only thing she had left was enough reason to call upon Jesus Christ for help. 

I use the word “reason” to emphasize that when you belong to Christ, it is reasonable and makes good scientific sense to call on him for help. No, you can’t set up an empirical laboratory experiment to make God demonstrate how he cares for people and moves on their behalf. On the other hand, millions of people who know the Lord petition him for help and witness his astonishing provision for their needs.

God doesn’t mind scientific exploration. He invites, even empowers the understanding of nature, including the study of Homo sapiens. Yet when it comes to the well-being of persons, God moves freely by exerting his transcendent will to help people out. Without his compassionate heart at the center of things, we would all be transitory blips in a cold dark universe, where names don’t matter and personalities are no more significant than tree stumps. 

My physician friend knew that she was not a tree stump. She called on the Lord for help to restore a miserably broken life. Cooperating with the grace that was offered, she acknowledged her errors of judgment and followed the Holy Spirit’s lead in setting her life aright. At the end of the five years she emerged debt free, with enough income to make a down payment on a home. I could tell that invisibly, yet perceptively, she had joined the cloud of witnesses who have walked through the valley of the shadow and found Christ an able Shepherd.

While my friend’s story helps to illustrate how the Lord moves supernaturally through ordinary trials, I want to share an experience that bears witness to a miracle from God in a life-threatening emergency. 

One night I was driving through a hundred-mile stretch of remote country in the midst of a winter blizzard, when the car heater broke down. It wasn’t long before my feet turned to ice blocks and my breath fogged up the windshield. I crawled along at twenty miles an hour, fearful that I might drive off the road. 

Shaking now from the sub-zero weather, I uttered the most unusual prayer of my life: “God, please bring heat inside the car so I don’t freeze to death.” A minute later a breeze started blowing gently on my feet and legs. It was piping hot air. I didn’t know how God was doing it, but the whole interior of the car gradually heated up to where the fog cleared off the windshield, my bones stopped rattling, and I felt warm as toast. 

Thankfully, I drove the remaining distance without getting stuck in a snowbank, arriving at my destination in a fully heated car. When I checked the heater the next day it wasn’t working. I took the car to a mechanic who replaced a faulty thermostat. 

I don’t know what your needs are right now or what pressures are threatening you. But I do know that I am in your corner, with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are cheering you on, as you and Jesus make the supernatural more natural in your life.

For more, read:

FAITH BEYOND CHURCH WALLS