With all the respect u know I have for u Ms. Red, I won't answer your questions because it would be the same as trying to grow apple trees in the Sahara desert.
I love you, and I hope everything is fine with you and your love ones.

I don’t know why everyone always has to call it bashing when people ask legitimate questions.

Where in the story was there any reason to believe that this ‘miracle’ recovery should be attributed to any particular deity?

That’s the only real question that is being raised.

Red basically asks, “How do we know what is divine intervention and what isn’t?” Did angels appear and state specifically that this was a miracle performed by particular God?

That’s a legitimate question. It’s not bashing anyone.

I suggest the same thing. Why is this being attributed to a specific God when there is nothing in the story that even implies what the source of the rapid recovery might have been.

I think it’s a legitimate question to ask why other devout and good Christians have suffered great pain and loss. What was so special about this girl? Why should we believe that God favors her over other apparent sincere Christians?

And what about the non-Christians who have similar stories of seemingly miraculous event occurring in their lives, what do we attribute those events to? If we have to also attribute them to God, then clearly God doesn’t care what religion people are affiliated with.

These are legitimate questions Miguel.

Not meant to bash anyone.

re-read this.

If one believes in supernatural agents, then it becomes a matter of weighting the event vs probablity. The recovery of one person from a wound that should have been deadly. If you reject the supernatural, then you are left without any explaination. If you accept the supernatural, then the answer is "miracle".

That was just a personal testimonial.

It wasn’t aimed at the OP or anyone in particular.

It was just a statement of personal joy.

I got carried away with excitement and posted it spontaneously.

My apologies for the outburst.

And that's not being questioned.

The question wasn't whether or not the event may or may not have been "supernatural" but rather why any particular supernatural source should be credited?

If the credit is given to an external intervening God, then the next question is why God doesn’t intervene more often for other folks. What was so special about that girl?

Moreover, what does it mean for something to be “supernatural”. You say that the wound should have been deadly. Maybe it was just a bad diagnoses and the wounds were never really as bad as they first appeared to be to the doctors. Doctors have been known to make mistakes. Seems like a more realistic explanation already.

We also know that some people heal a lot faster than other, etc, etc, etc.

The point is simple. If a person is going to claim a miracle from God they should have a reason for making such a declaration.

Like Redy asked, “How does one know when something is a miracle verses just a normal probability”

Unless there is a reason to claim that it was divine intervention then to do so is making quite an huge assumption.

The fact that humans are so quick to attribute anomalies to divine intervention brings the whole biblical account into questions. Perhaps the authors of the Bible were doing the same thing. Just attributing everything they couldn’t explain to divine intervention.

God wants us to believe in faith. If every Christian spontaneously healed from any damage...then everyone would want to be a Christian. God doesn't do parlor tricks, you believe through faith or you don't believe.

But sometimes it's not a Christian or even a religious person who is miraculously healed. That's exactly what Jesus taught, Gods blessings to the righteous and unrighteous. God loves all of us, even the ones who hate him.

The mere fact that we live and breathe is a miracle.

Life itself, is a miracle.

Becoming born again is a miracle.

But I understand what some are asking here....some of you are questioning and wondering about the "instant" miracle.

First of all, God is God.
And God's Timing is not our timing.
God's Timing is Always Perfect.

And that is why, oft times, God will allow a certain amount of time to pass, before a healing miracle fully manifests.
And then again, sometimes that healing miracle happens instantly.
And sometimes , it doesn't appear to happen at all.

Even so, God knows what He is doing, even if we don't.
God is still in control.
And Again....God's timing is Always perfect.
And His Ways are Higher than Ours.

There are numerous times in my own life, for instance, that I have not only experienced instant miracles;
but I have also seen instant miracles in others.

And then, there were other times, when I didn't see a miracle, until much time had passed.

And then, there are also those prayers ,that I and others, are still waiting to be answered.
And it appears as if nothing is happening.

But is that so, just because it "appears" so?
That nothing is happening, that is?

One thing I can say..... If all miracles in my life had been always instant,my Faith would never have grown.
I would have just ended up being a spoiled child....expecting God to heal and deliver at my every beck and call ....while I demanded God to, "heal me NOW, Lord, Amen"!!

In other words, if all miracles in my life were always instant,I would be nothing more than a "Gimme Gimme Gimme " Christian.
Nothing more.

But, it was in those times of waiting and Trusting in God.....
it was in those dark lonely hours when it appeared that God was not even hearing or answering my prayers....
it was in those very trying times, that Faith came......instead of doubt...as I drew closer and closer to God.....
and it was then, in those dark and lonely hours, that I realized ....
I was not alone...that God was with me....Still.
And He would always be there with me, even until the very end.

And it is in those very moments ,even now....
when it seems that all I have is Faith in God ....
that I find...Faith in God is all I need.

And that is when my Faith Grows...in those trying times....and
sweet Peace comes...cause I know that all will be well.....cause .....God is Faithful who Promised.


So...if all miracles were all just instant miracles ?
None of us would ever grow, And our walk would have no depth, whatsoever.
We would just be spiritually stunted spoiled children.
Nothing more.

But God doesn't want us to be that way, does He .....
No, of course not.
God wants us instead, to be a pure reflection of Him......cause we were already created in His image.

And that is why sometimes,God has to take us thru some fiery trials, and allow suffering in our lives for a season....but it is only to burn away the dross in our lives....and God knows the fiery trial will not be for always.
But just for a little while....

You See....God never leaves us IN the fiery trial...God always brings us THRU the fiery trial.
Always.
Cause , by allowing us to go thru the fiery trial, God already knows we will come out just fine.... with only the dross of our lives burned away.......while we become in the end...
just a pure relection of Him.

So therefore, in allowing that suffering in our lives for a season....
God knows what He is doing.
He is still God.
And still on the Throne.
And God is perfecting that Good work that He has begun in us .

Like The bible says,
After we have suffered awhile, God will settle us, establish us perfect us ....
see...it is just for awhile.
Not forever.

And ...in the end, a greater miracle comes as a result.
And it is The miracle ...
of becoming more and more like Christ Jesus.
Amen.

God gives miracles and has mercy and shows love to Christians and non Christians alike.
God loves all ....however, He would still want all to be saved.
But God will still have mercy, on all man...saved and unsaved.

What’s up with the guessing games?

I thought God was concerned with people being sincere and pure of heart.

To imply that it’s important that we also play guessing games does nothing more than suggest that people who guess wrong are necessarily evil or undesirable people.

God should only be concerned with whether people are pure of heart.

He shouldn’t have any need to turn our spirituality into a crap shoot.

What would be the point to that?

That does nothing to help me believe.

it is an interesting anecdote but offers nothing to help "believe" anything. One could substitute "God" for Ra, Quetzalcoatl, or George Dubya and make the same declaration of faith.

Would you believe with a pure heart if you knew without a doubt that God existed and that hell awaited for those who were not saved? Nobody could, we would believe out of fear. If you want to know God and you come to God with a broken spirit, with no strings attached to your belief, you will find God.

I thought you just said the other day that you don’t believe in hell?

I must confess that I never think in terms of going to hell. No decent God could possibly send me to hell. To do so, it would need to be far less compassionate than me. I’ve never done anything in my entire life that would warrant such a fate.

It seems to me that all you’re really suggesting here as that people should bow down to appease this God out of fear whether they believe it’s true or not just in case it might be true.

Just sounds like a scare tactic to try to get people to follow a particular manmade dogma.

That’s what I honestly believe in my pure and sincere heart Spider.

So what would you have me do?

Pretend to believe in an unreasonable unfair sadistic God just in an attempt to appease its unstable demented personality?

I can’t go there.

If God really is the unjust demon that you claim, I’ll just surrender to the fact that I’m doomed.

From my point of view we’d all be doomed if that’s the case. It doesn’t really matter whether you worship the demon or reject it, either way you are at its mercy.

Any God that would send sincere decent people to hell just because they didn’t buy into a particular story would be a demon. There’s no other conclusion that can be had.

It simply makes no sense at all that God would only favor people who believe particular stories. Especially when the stories in question makes God out to be quite evil in many ways.

People who reject that picture because they believe that God is actually better than that picture, certainly don’t deserve to go to hell for having done nothing more than give God a compliment by believing that he actually wiser and more compassionate that the biblical stories make him out to be.

And all-wise God would surely be able to comprehend the wisdom that I’m conveying here.

It makes perfect sense that those ancient stories were made up by men. The stories portray a God that has all the human frailties, human emotions, and human desires. The God even gets angry. It has a desire and need to be worshiped. It demands to be the center of attention. It rules over kingdoms like the men of old dreamed of doing. It’s fighting a war against evil. In the end it will win which means that the war was just a meaningless game in the first place and even the winner of the game was known at the outset, so it wasn’t even a fair game.

Finally, after it wins its war it will descend from the heavens and rule over all its subjects and every knee will bow and ever tongue will confess that it is the King of the Universe. How quaint.

This is the epitome of the dreams of egotistical men, - to rule the world with unquestioned authority.

This story is a story of human ego. Not the story of a creator of the universe.

Just take a look around Spider.

The earth is but a speck of dust in a universe that has over 70 sextillion stars.

That 70 thousand million million million other worlds.

Do you honestly believe that in all of that, God’s only purposes is to rule over pathetic humans and have them grovel at his feet?

That egotistical picture of God is an insult to the creator of this universe.

And here you are trying to get me to insult our creator by believing that it’s driven by ego.

And then implying that if I’m not willing to insult it, it will send me to Hell.

And you even just said the other day that you don’t even believe in hell.

Clearly you aren’t sure what you believe. You seem to constantly change your story to whatever suits your proselytizing needs at the moment.

Abra...... God does not send us anywhere.
He leaves that choice up to us.

Abra......God gave man a free will .
To choose.....

But Abra......God is also a God of tender mercies and long suffering and much patience.
God knows our very nature and our very being.....in other words, God knows our stubborness and our not understanding who He is..and what He is really all about.
Yes.....God knows us......and that is why
God Patiently waits for us to come to Him.....like the loving Father who waits for his son to come home.

Abra...allow me to share something with you.

I had an atheist friend whom I loved dearly.
He was my friend, even though he did not believe in Jesus .

Suddenly one day recently, he became gravely ill, and was dying. I was by his side, praying and quietly asking God to help my friend to know Jesus ,before he left this world.

Abra ,I wept and cried out in deep intercession , for what seemed days , for my friend's salvation.

Suddenly, , after many hours of crying out to God.... suddenly,in the middle of the night , the heavy burden and weeping in my heart suddenly lifted....and an unspeakable joy filled my soul.
I knew then, in my spirit, that my prayers had been answered.

The next morning,after having been up all nite in intercession for my friend, I had laid my head down and dozed off for just a few moments .
And I had a dream.

In this dream, my dear friend, the one in the hospital ,suddenly appeared before me in my dream.
He was smiling.

I said, "Hey my friend, what are you doing sitting up...... you were dying in the hospital!!"

My friend looked at me and smiled and simply said, "I just came to tell you that I made it over to the other side."
Then I suddenly woke up from the dream, and looked at the clock.
It was 800 am.
I quickly called the hospital.
They told me they had just checked, and My friend had already passed on.
But I knew , despite the sorrow of losing my friend, that God had also assured me, thru that dream, that my friend had made it to heaven.

Later on , I talked to his daughter, who had flown in from out of state.
She also had been deeply interceeding and praying for her pappa,
for his salvation.
She also shared with me,later on, how she has asked God if her father had made it.
She said , that while she cried out to God to show her a sign, a feather suddenly came floating down from out of no where.
To her, it was a sign from heaven, to assure her heart, that her pappa had made it afterall(there was some other significenct meaning behind the feather story ,that I do not have all the details yet...my friend's passing just happened very recently).

By now, some of you may be wondering ...hey....just because I had a dream...
or .....
just because a feather came floating down , doesn't prove a thing.
True.

But I just know by Faith , that my prayer was answered.... mostly by the peace and joy that had suddenly flooded my heart that day.
And That same unspeakable joy and peace filled my friends heart that day too, when a sign was give unto her.
Somehow we both just Knew in our spirit, that my friend had accepted the Lord, before he departed from this world.

So, Does God sometimes send signs and wonders to comfort our hearts , to assure us? Yes.
God can work however God wants to .
God is God.

Does that mean we can always depend on a sign?
No.
Absolutely not.

We are only to Depend on God's Word.
Not a sign.
But know, God is a God of all COMFORT too, and He comforts those who mourn .
And sometimes God will show a sign or use a dream to comfort those who mourn.
Amen?

But dreams and signs are not what I am really trying to get across here .....
what I am trying to share here is that...... God is VERY merciful and patient, and will even reach out at the very last minute ,to give a person a chance to come to Him.

So.... Abra... NO.......God sends no one to hell.
We send ourslves there, by rejecting God.

Abra.....God will reach out to us, and still give us a chance,even in our final last dying breath,to come to Him.
And Accept Him as our Lord and Saviour.
But please don't wait that long ,Abra.
Ok?

Abra..... God is a God of LOVE.
And He longs to give you a life of such wonderful joy and fulfillment, Abra ...all you have to do is ask Him in.

He is REAL, Abra...
And He is Patiently waiting ....
Amen.

God Bless You, Abra.......