Ordinary Life, Extraordinary God

Dreams, Visions, and Miracles in the Everyday

Louise Gray

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781666794427
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Present reality is transfigured when it encounters another world in this one, disseminating the miraculous in the ordinary every day to effect a process of limitless transformation and possibility. Here is living witness to the bounty of a God who is alive and ever-present in the universe and infinitely available to all, Christian or not. In all his grandeur he appears to the most ordinary, not just the giants of the faith, in his commitment of inextricability from the human race whom he calls beloved. Cross-pollinating the here and now with the extraordinary God of the Old and New Testaments, this chronicle marries memoir and academic research effortlessly.The capacity of God to do absolutely anything at any time for anyone without blowing his own trumpet, both masks and marks the power and extent of his love to improve human circumstances. Over a lifetime of difficulties, dreams, visions, miracles, and doctoral research on God as love itself, the author joins Job whose response to God after a prolonged encounter is, "I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you" (Job 42: 1).

1

Is Anything Too Difficult for the Lord1 in the Here and Now?

It is strategic that this chronicle of God’s entrances into my reality begin in the middle of a storm, a real deluge on a cold, Melbourne morning. God does all things well, including downpours of the real and metaphorical variety. What is most appreciated about storms is this: I meet the real God, not the one shackled by human moorings to interpretation, analysis, extrapolation, and/or denominational theology. The latter has its place in exploring the nature of the extraordinary, but these events are actual instants of God’s intervention in the warp and woof of the everyday, displacing and denuding constructions of himself2 while exceeding all expectations. These visits enrich and are sharper than any two-edged sword because they are the Word enacting itself in deed. This gives credibility to an idea of God by Aquinas, who once wrote, “God is pure actuality.”3 What’s more, in all his grandeur he appears to the most ordinary, not just the giants of the faith, indicating his commitment of inextricability from the world of humans, plants, and animals.

Melbournians were experiencing a torrential downpour after a long period of very little rain. This was the first day of a new semester, and the first tutorial I would facilitate. The car is parked a half hour’s walk away from the university, off campus, for the simple reason that parking is free. After parking, there was no option other than to sit in the car wondering how to get to the university dry without an umbrella. This outpouring was completely unexpected and prompted prayer that the shower would stop just long enough for me to get to the campus center. Once there, an umbrella could be purchased.

Imaginings of a bedraggled woman entering her debut tutorial rained trepidation while the noise of the storm on the outside competed for my full attention. Initial nerviness was doubled at the thought of a ruined reputation.

Pinned inside the car, the violent storm blurred the outside of every window and produced a fine mist on the inside. Finally, after about ten minutes, expecting to be completely soaked, and late to boot, after grabbing my bag, I opened the car door. The unabashed rain stopped instantly and completely, downright. Astonished and jolted, the long walk to the campus center began, completely dry. On the way, one tiny, icy raindrop landed directly on the middle of my head, causing me to look up and remember the finely refined and attuned power of God. He had been waiting for me to get out of the car; I waited for him to stop the rain before getting out of the car. He was more patient; it required of me the faith sufficient to only open the car door. Was it faith or necessity? The latter, in all honesty, which had the effect of driving home the importance of faith. He did the rest, modeling a metaphor that would persist for the next twenty years of my future. The rain started again about one hour after reaching my destination, totally dry.

Spiritual storms, intermixed with drought, sowed and farmed the seeds of my wavering faith. As Hosea realized, God “shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth” (6:3). That is, as one interpretation has it, after the sowing and the harvest of the word. Echoing Jesus in John 17:3, on the importance of knowing God, Hosea 6:3 continues, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

He received nothing in return for that feat of the miraculous; it was not beamed on social media, but instead, a change crept into my mind and heart of seismic nature in which a Scripture was corroborating itself through this experience: ask anything of the Father in my name, Jesus pleads, and he will do it (John 14:13, 14; 16:23).

On the Thursday before Good Friday a few years later, while facilitating a tutorial, the ability to teach suddenly vanished, leaving me struggling to get through a three-hour session. Late that afternoon, exhaustion had the upper hand on the way home via a forty-five-minute drive, while realizing quite quickly God had orchestrated this incident for good effect. For the first time teaching was seen as a gift, a blessing, and generous thanks accompanied an apology as a kind request was made to restore the ability. It was, after the Easter break. Yet, it was also self-evident as it was to Job that, “God gives and takes away.” This Scripture is, as my experience proved, followed by “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

On this same drive home, confusion had set in on reflecting on a conundrum: some people in church prayed to the Father, others to the Father and/or Son and still others were moved to call on the Holy Spirit, or a combination of the above. Very few prayed to the Father, Son, and Spirit because these three are one, and talking with one, usually to me, includes the other. Yet the question persisted since at that time, everything was taken to Jesus.

Working in two places, doing a lot at the church and a family of four delightful but needy males had taken a toll on my energy levels, such that, on opening the front door after returning home; my husband said something to me which was brushed off. Just let me relax please, I thought. Persistent, he stood at the door of the room annoyingly and as my bag was put away, he quite loudly asserted in a booming voice, Jesus says, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given unto him” (Matt 28:18). Then he repeated it. Yes, the answer to my question was prompt and comforting; fortunately, God doesn’t give up, particularly when we are not in synchrony with his generosity or too tired to care.

At about this time something very frightening occurred. My son James, then fourteen, confided in me that he was experiencing auditory hallucinations which had two dominant effects. They terrified him to the point where he requested I sleep on the floor of his room at night in order to reassure him. As well, he tended to spend quite a lot of time outside doing physical activity because as a result, the hallucinations were rendered less compelling to him.

Although it was a busy time at work, every spare minute was spent trawling through the medical databases at the university for information that could offer insight into his condition. Whilst the condition may have been caused by an illness picked up while travelling through some countries in Africa with his father previously, it is also clear that young people a few years older than him commonly experience the first symptoms of schizophrenia. I needed to act fast. Taking him to a psychiatrist was a very real possibility, but it could take years to address his condition. Prayer took over. I had already learned to pray in the gaps while teaching. A very tricky request was sent to Jesus, based on all the remarkable feats he had accomplished in my life up to that point. Husband Geoff furnished prayer cover for supply of sufficient faith, which was milked for all it was worth. The hallucinations stopped abruptly, releasing James into complete recovery and freedom from fear within a week of relentless, intense prayer. God has proven time and again that he is able to accomplish more than we may ask or imagine (Eph 3:20), uprooting mountains by the power generated by a grain of faith in him; a skerrick is sufficient for all purposes. Faith is the guarantee of what one requests, but it too is a gift from God4 and available on request. The Bible was living, breathing, and acting in my life, one Scripture and sometimes more, at the same time. Challenges are unavoidable in life, Christian or not, and can be truly frightening, but God’s response to them is to defy the laws of the natural order in rescuing us from them, which has the effect of deepening our trust in his existence, extraordinary intervention, and defence beyond process.5 The KJV of Ps 4:1 alread...