The past couple of weeks, I have been enormously blessed and inspired reading Corrie ten Boom’s book, Tramp for the Lord.  In modern American Christianity, we so rarely hear stories that build our faith.  Rather, we seem to often hear stories that make God seem less impressive than the Bible claims He is. One hugely popular book (that won the Christian book of the year award) starts out by saying that in all of his years as a Christian, he has never seen a miracle.  And even the so-called miracles that he has heard about have been proven false after a short period of time.  (Like a guy who is supposedly healed of cancer and then dies the next year when it comes back even worse.)

Corrie’s life portrays just the opposite message.  Her journey is filled with beautiful testimonies of God’s faithfulness, reminding me of the miracles that can happen everyday when we simply have a childlike heart of faith and take God at His Word.  Christ said that unless we humble ourselves like little children, we can have no part in His kingdom.  I have been asking God to make me even more childlike in my faith.  To tune out all the voices of doubt and cynicism that swirl around me, even from “spiritual sources”, and simply trust that He will be exactly who He says He is.

Corrie tells a story about being in a Russian hotel and seeing a downcast cleaning woman.  Corrie felt a heavy burden to reach her for Christ, but when she tried to approach her with a tract, the woman gave her a dirty look and shooed her away.  Disappointed, Corrie walked into the elevator and began to pray.  “Lord, I claim this woman’s soul for Your Kingdom.”  Then she hesitated.  Was it right for her to pray such a bold prayer?  But she felt sure that God wanted her to stand in faith for the woman’s salvation.  About a half hour later, she was in her hotel room and the cleaning woman knocked at the door.  Surprised, Corrie let her in the room.  It didn’t take long before she realized that the woman was asking for a tract.  When she handed it to her, the woman’s face was overjoyed, and she hugged Corrie in heartfelt gratitude.  Corrie knew that her prayer of faith was yielding eternal fruit.

Another time she was in a men’s prison in Africa.  The men were hopeless, depressed and miserable – sitting in mud and filth, their eyes devoid of any life.  Corrie prayed and asked in faith for God to flood that prison with His joy.  And by the time she was done speaking, the men had come alive.  Their faces were radiant and excited.  They had found a reason to live again.  As she drove away, the prisoners surrounded her car and called out, “Old woman!  Come back again and tell us more about Jesus!”

This is the way Corrie lived her life – and it is the way God has called each of us to live as well.  Miracles aren’t something we should expect maybe once in a lifetime.  Miracles are something we can see every single day – when we abide in our Lord’s presence and walk in the center of His will.

Eric and I are beginning to see more and more miracles in our daily life as we allow God to work this childlike faith into our souls.  We recently prayed for a deathly ill orphan child across the world who was not expected to live – and two weeks later, he was released from the hospital, healthy and strong.  Last summer, we prayed for Harper’s adoption to be the fastest one the agency had ever done – and God did exactly that.  Just last night, our new little baby was screaming and crying with a tummy ache for about 3 hours.  We prayed that he would be miraculously delivered of pain and have the best night of sleep he’d ever had.  And God answered our prayer in an incredible and dramatic way.

Our God IS a God of miracles!  If you are struggling to trust Him in any area of your life, I would encourage you to read about Corrie’s life, and the lives of other great heroes who walked by faith and not by sight.  Once you begin to gain a childlike heart of trust in your God, you will see His faithfulness like never before! *