[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
The biggest conflict is that they both believe in very different doctrines. Nonetheless, God continues to work for both of them. We can conclude either that God is not at work for either of them or, that God does not care about man’s “doctrines”.[/quote]
Yes. I believe we each make our own ‘doctorines’ that generally form our experience. They may be aligned with a religious doctorine or not. They may be pleasant or unpleasant. Either way, it’s our own creation and the God Life Force lovingly goes along with it. I believe we all start with a blank page or clean slate that is good and filled with well-being. Then we write what we want in the form of beliefs, expectations, judgements, appreciations, loves, hates, etc. This may be a conscious or mostly unconscious process until we form the tapestry of our life.
However, having said that, sometimes there are ‘outlier’ experiences that cause us to say either WOW! or WTF?! I’ve had both. But since the original poster brought up miracles, my take is not so much that God decides to ‘do’ one for us, but what we aligned ourselves with receiving the well-being that is always already there. Or at the very least, don’t prevent one with solid unbelief.
Brief example: I had a grandmother (90 y.o.) and an uncle (50 y.o.) with the same serious lung disease. Both were considered ultimately fatal by the doctors. My grandmother was in and out of hospitals and long-term care facilities – but she had loving daughters visit her continuously. A Son-in-law became her advocate with the treatments & medications…continually challenging the doctors on what they were doing (like why is she on Alziemers med when she doesn’t have Alziemers, etc.).
My uncle was married with 4 kids. His wife was/is a frantic loud-mouth - constantly complaining about everything (not that I blame her, it was a bad scene).
Everyone expected my grandmother to die and my uncle to ultimately pull through. Nope, other way around. Grandma pulled through, got home and is happily shuffling around to this day – the miracle. Uncle passed away and left four kids, who take turns being yelled at by the loud-mouth wife (who would blame him for leaving) who picked up the payout of a generous insurance policy.
Just for your information, when ‘the miracle’ like Grandma’s happened, the doctors claimed it was a misdiagnosis. ‘Oh, she must not have really had the always fatal lung disease, it must have been something else that just looked like it’ Whatever. Grandma was easily confused with medical jargon so she just tuned it out. She never wanted to hear it because she didn’t understand it. She stayed in the present and appreciated and loved every visit she got. She was interested in and loved the nurses and therapists. She judged the doctors by their bedside manners, not by their knowledge or skills or what they had to say medically.
Unfortunately, my uncle had an overanalytical and burdened wife, who made no secret that she was overworked, underappreciated, stretched out, in the wrong hands medically. Constantly complaining, she chased away many helpful people with her acidity.
Now it makes perfect sense…that a 90 yo would get better and live and a 50 yo would give up and die. I think most all miracles are like that…always there…either allowed or not allowed.
