My church background doesn’t really place a great deal of emphasis on the “signs and wonders” type of thing. While a good measure of healthy skepticism is often needed – the Bible warns us to “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and there have been some terrible examples of the abuse of such beliefs, such as the “miracle babies”, could it be that we’re often all too closed to the possibility of God actually doing anything? It seems to me that we often try to trap God in our little doctrinal boxes. He rarely plays be the rules of how we think he ought to act. Where would the fun or joy or grace or glory of that be?

Recently Mum was telling me on the phone (hi mum!) about someone who they had invited over for lunch, whose arm had been healed quite miraculously.

Anyway, at some point last week I somehow hurt my arm, strained it or something. It had been hurting for a few days and so on Monday, I got out of bed and stretched in front of the mirror and winced as I felt it hurt. I decided to pray about it – no harm in asking, and so, feeling a little cheeky considering there are much more serious things for God to worry about, I asked him to make it better, saying I believed he had the power to make it better but I understood if it was a daft idea and that it would get better in the fulness of time. Anyway, feeling slightly ridiculous, I gave it a wriggle and it still hurt. Feeling a bit silly but not terribly surprised, I then gave my arm another wave. And to my surprise, the pain was gone – it just felt completely fine, so praise God for that!

Now, I know that the cynics among you will say that I just made my arm better by giving it a good stretch rather than divine intervention, and you may be right. But if getting me to wriggle my arm around like some maniac was what was needed to make my arm better, well, I’m thankful to God for that too!

I hear objections of “confirmation bias” and raise you “competing hermenuetical frameworks”… ;-)