The husband is doing a sound engineering job today – a healing conference out-of-town, so he needed to use the car.  This meant, tragically for me and my youngest, we had to get a lift to school about an hour earlier than usual and were “forced” to have our breakfast in the nearby Waitrose cafe (other supermarket cafes are available.)  Look at her little face – normally she has a bowl of generic brand rice-pops but today was extraordinary so she got the buttermilk pancakes, a strawberry monkey milkshake and enough maple syrup to drown Banana man.

Breakfast is one of my 3 favourite meals of the day but I do get easily bored (unlike the husband who eats the same cereal day in day out, year after year after year.) I like to have a selection of options so I can see what I’m in the mood for – a few Malted Wheaties, perhaps a bowl of porridge or  if I’m feeling fancy I might really push the boat out with some granola! I like to think of the cereal cupboard as a picture of God’s everyday provision – as a kid you never think about how the cereal cupboard gets filled up or what it costs, it’s just there and ready.  It’s like common, everyday, ordinary grace.  In contrast, I remember one breakfast time when I was a small child when my dad took me and my sister out to the back garden to show us something wonderful.  My grandma had bought us our very own,  real live pet donkey (obviously not for breakfast.) We called her Sally.  That is what I think of as mind-blowing, never-heard-of, completely wild, crazy, over-the-top generosity.  Extraordinary.

The next part of the story in Acts 19 today talks about Paul spending some time in Ephesus.  The people he met there had begun their journey to salvation – they had repented but had not been baptised in Jesus name and had not yet received the Holy Spirit.  Paul baptised them and lays his hands on them, praying for them to receive the Holy Spirit.  Immediately they begin to speak in tongues and prophecy.  Paul faces some opposition as well as encouragement over the couple of years that he stays in Ephesus but I love what verse 11 says;

And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Acts 19:11-12

The Collins Dictionary defines the word miracle as:  an event or action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws and is hence thought to be due to supernatural causes, esp. to an act of God.  The root of the English word we use comes from the Latin, meaning to wonder at.  Surely all miracles, by the fact they are miracles, are extraordinary, no?  Well apparently not.  I though maybe this was an anomaly of the ESV translation but the NIV and the NASB agree. The King James version and the Living Bible call them “unusual miracles,” The Amplified Bible says “extraordinary and unusual miracles” and The Message says “powerful things… things quite out of the ordinary.”  So I guess the translators are unanimous on this one – the miracles that God was doing through Paul were not just your run-of-the-mill, everyday,  normal ones they were “some very special miracles” (International Children’s Bible.)

This begs the question, surely, if these miracles are extraordinary ones, then what is an ordinary miracle? And do we live our lives in a way that expects God to do ordinary, everyday miracles?  James 4:3 tells us that we do not have because we do not ask. Jesus said;

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. John 14:12-14

The bible is clear – miracles are supposed to be ordinary for those us that know Jesus.  Can you even imagine it?  What would it be like if the news reporters came to check you out because they heard the testimonies of many people being set free from different types of addiction? What if people came to your church building for help because they had met someone who used to be crippled by mental illness but now is healthy and happy and thriving? Imagine hospitals in your city referring terminal cancer patients to your church because you have a reputation for miracles!  Broken marriages restored, wayward children reconciled to families, those caught in slavery released. I don’t really understand what is classed as an ordinary miracle and what counts as extraordinary but I know that God wants us to ask Him for them.  He wants us to bring Him our problems, concerns and cares.  He wants us to bring Him our difficulties, improbabilities and impossibilities.  He wants us to answer us with ordinary, cereal-cupboard provision as well as wild and crazy – “here kid I bought you a pet donkey” type answers.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Eph 3:20-21

My prayer for you this week is that the God of extraordinary miracles would give you a gift of faith so that you might dare to ask Him to do what only He can do.  I just remembered a time when I was a teenager and I was struggling with recurrent throat issues.  I used to lose my voice for extended periods of time.  One such time, on a youth camping trip, my friend prayed for God to heal me and at the end of his short prayer my voice returned and I said “Amen!” I have never had that problem with my throat again. I am saying Amen to your prayers too – I haven’t got a convenient handkerchief or spare apron to send you so I’m sending this blog post instead.  Let me know if anything extraordinary happens won’t you?  Much love Rach x