Lesson 231 . The Miracles of Love

Miracles are something that cannot be explained by a pattern or as the consequence of something. They defy definition and are accepted as fact without additional attempts to explain them. Miracles are the result of supernatural forces acting beyond the bounds of our imagination, and they are an integral part of Christian culture as exceptions to the rules, although they cannot be its foundation. God very often gives miraculous answers to prayers that cannot be explained by any law, and He does this according to His mercy and love for His children.

Every miracle should be approached with great caution, for Satan can also perform miracles, which he will actively do in the last days.

Christianity is not a religion of miracles, for miracles are performed solely according to the will of God, which may be contrary to my expectations.

We live in the most wonderful world, which has its own laws of nature, physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, and psychology. And we have learned to explain all of this, seeing cause and effect. But sometimes it becomes impossible to explain the process itself. Why does it happen this way? Take even the growth of a seed. I know what it should look like at each stage. But why it grows in precisely this way and becomes something out of nothing, I do not know.

Would you like to see a miracle that science still cannot explain? Place your hand on the left side of your chest and feel your heart beating. This is an undeniable fact to which we have grown accustomed. But according to every law of logic, it cannot work on its own. It needs Someone Who will start it and keep it operating in this mode.

A bumblebee cannot fly, because its proportions do not correspond to the lifting force of its wings, but for some reason it does not know this and violates all the laws of physics. And a simple fly confounds those who study the laws of aerodynamics: physically, it simply cannot change its flight path so quickly. But as I watch a fly, I see that it knows nothing at all about these laws and brazenly violates them.

Nature is filled with nothing but miracles and mysteries, but we have grown accustomed to them.

In the Christian life, we also constantly encounter all kinds of miraculous manifestations that amaze us. But if they happen constantly, they cease to surprise us, and we simply grow accustomed to them. How can one explain when a person addicted to alcohol suddenly receives freedom from this addiction and begins a new life? At first this is amazing, but if it becomes commonplace, the amazement passes, and you simply expect it as the norm of life.

The behavior of the scribes and Pharisees, who followed Jesus, saw His miracles, yet asked for greater miracles that would convince them that He was the true Messiah, has always been a mystery to me. If I had seen that, I surely would have believed. And how can faith itself be explained? What is it?

The science of love belongs to the category of miracles that can be described as fact but cannot be explained so clearly as to make an ironclad rule out of it. It is similar to how we try to describe God, fit Him within the boundaries of our understanding, and not let Him go beyond the limits of our imagination. But He is greater than all of this. If love could be explained and arranged neatly into categories, I think it would become available to everyone, and even Satan would use it for his own purposes.

But it exists. It is invisible, yet we see it and feel it with our hearts. We cannot describe it in words, but when it enters our lives, we understand that it is love.

It has no mouth, yet it knows how to speak to everyone in a language he understands. It has no ears, yet it hears not only our voices but also our thoughts and knows beforehand what we will ask of it.

It has no eyes, yet it looks into our souls and reads people’s hearts like open books. It sees the hidden treasures in the soul of every person and knows how to bring them forth and reveal them.

Love has no hands, yet it embraces us so tenderly and firmly and carries us in its arms of faith and love that we do not want to leave them. It places its nonexistent hand on my shoulder and supports me in my trials.

It has no feet, yet it walks ahead of me and never falls behind me, preparing the way for me and calling me to follow in its steps.

It puts the shoes of readiness on me and teaches me to walk in them.

It has no outward appearance, yet it is so beautiful that I continually admire it, try to delight in its beauty, and share descriptions of its image and likeness with others. There is nothing in the world more beautiful than love, and it becomes the most beautiful adornment of everything it touches.

A blind person cannot appreciate the magnificent expanses and wonderful landscapes that love paints. But if there are eyes in my head, I try to satisfy my eye with the sight of love as I contemplate it, and I understand that it is impossible to have too much of it.

Does love have a soul? I cannot answer this unequivocally. But when our souls unite into one whole, I understand that Someone lives within me Who is higher than my understanding and imagination.

And yet, for all its inexplicable and mysterious nature, love has special patterns that can be identified and explained. It never acts contrary to God’s law, briefly expressed in the Ten Commandments, and it always points out my mistakes if my conduct contradicts or goes against God’s commandments. In essence, God’s law is the verbal expression of God’s character and is the foundation of the happy life of all God’s creation.

Try changing even one commandment to suit your desires and making that change part of your life, and love will immediately point it out, call such behavior sin, and be right; it will not retreat from its principles.

Love is firm as a rock, and no power can break this fortress. If I fall upon it, I am broken, but I do not die physically; rather, all my stereotypes, fears, doubts, unbelief, temptations, envy, malice, and the rest of the rubbish that I carefully collected in my heart are broken. And there is no softer bed for my weary soul in which it could luxuriate with such pleasure.

In this account, I am trying to explain the inexplicable, contradicting myself with my own definitions, but in the end everything is described in an inexplicably correct way that cannot be proven, yet can be understood to be exactly so.

For me, the greatest miracle is myself. Every time I analyze my life and what the Lord has done with me, I never cease to be amazed, and my joy knows no bounds. I know and remember myself as someone different, not the person I am now. And I cannot understand how I became what I am today. This is not I; it is something beyond description; it is some kind of miracle of God. But I accept it and live in it, and sometimes I simply grow accustomed to the new me.

When I began asking for love for myself, I did not even imagine what it would do with me. And now I cannot imagine what I can do without it or how I could undertake anything without it. For me, there is nothing worse in the world than living without love; that can truly be called horror and a nightmare. Love has permeated everything, although I have grown accustomed even to this and sometimes do not think about it, and outwardly it is not especially evident. Nothing but miracles. Yet to someone else, all of this is simply strange.

Homework 231

In the light of our lesson, please read Exodus 3:20; 34:10; Joshua 3:5; Psalm 72:18; 78:9–16; Matthew 7:22–23; 24:24; John 4:48; Acts 5:12; 19:11; Revelation 13:14; 15:3; and 19:20.
What did you understand from this lesson?
Have you experienced miracles in your life? Tell us about them.
Do you believe that God still performs His wondrous works?
Have you seen the miracle of grace in your own mirror?
Why should you not build your faith on miracles?
Can Satan perform miracles? Through whom does he do this?
Do you believe that your hands and words of love perform miracles?
Has God’s love performed miracles of grace in your life through the lessons of our school?
Are you ready to become a channel of God’s love, in whose existence many people no longer believe?