The 2 AM Miracle (Wednesday, October 2nd)

This past Wednesday, I was in the basement bedroom, in the dead of night, shoved back into the world of the living by a prolonged and futile hacking up of my lungs in a never-ending cycle of useless coughs.

After the intense coughing depleted my weakened body again, I collapsed onto my pillow. I heard myself croak out a prayer to God: Please help me.

I was shocked to hear how weak, scratchy, and ragged my voice sounded.

What happened next amazed me.

Immediately, a divine power coursed through my body. I felt energized but quieted, healed beyond expectations, and joyful. Without even a moment to thank God, I fell into the soundest sleep of my life.

The following day, I nearly leaped out of bed. I had more energy to serve the Lord since I first surrendered to him at a missions conference in college. My wife and kids celebrated my instant healing with me, and we couldn't help but share what happened with others.

Already, two of our neighbors have accepted Christ. The dad told me, "This sounds like the Jesus we've discussed in the Gospels. Now I believe he's alive." They were with us at church this Sunday, and I wish you could have heard their worship. It was even more beautiful than the sound of my restored voice. (The miracle didn't include a recording contract!)

This is the story that I wish were true.

And why wouldn't God want to do that?

I'm not asking for money, fame, or power. I just wanted to sleep through the night and not stumble through another day with fatigue, headaches, and bouts of unrestrained coughing. I finally went to the doctor on Friday afternoon. He pitied me and prescribed a few powerful prescription medications.

But as I type this article out at 4 am on a Sunday, I can't say the medicine has fully worked yet. It's hard to be repeatedly and suddenly woken up to the alarm bells of my body pounding out another round of uncontrollable coughing.

Let me put you at ease: I'm getting substantively better. So, see if there are any other articles from me. I promise it will be reassuring to know that I eventually made a full recovery.

I sincerely prayed for God to heal me. In wholehearted faith that he can do it!

I know a cough is a minor inconvenience in the big scheme of things.

Still, why didn't God answer my prayer?

Would you happen to have an answer for that?

Another thing happened last week that felt connected. I tried listening to Christian radio on my way to pick up the kids from school. The first song that came on promised me, in a catchy chorus that was repeated repeatedly, that God fights all our battles. I started to feel uplifted.

After the song concluded, a chipper DJ jumped in to ensure we got the message. "God will fight all our battles!" she assured us, citing a verse from God helping the Israelites enter the Promised Land. From my many years of advanced theological training, it seemed like an interpretive stretch.

But who was I to disagree? I'm not on the radio. I don't have a hit Christian worship song to my name. I'm just a sleep-deprived dad with a cough that won't go away.

Anyway, I turned the radio off. It seemed best to return to my custom of praying silently when I'm alone in the car. Sitting quietly with God, navigating Atlanta's traffic, I honestly discussed my unanswered prayers with him.

There’s a place for discussing answers to this challenge.

But I want to do something else in this article:

End without an answer.

Are you ok with that?

Can we sit together in mystery, ambiguity, and a lack of closure?

I know it's just some respiratory insanity that left my throat on fire for a few days.

But we ask these questions for the small and the big reasons.

When my friend Nabeel Qureshi died at an early age of stomach cancer, leaving behind a fantastic wife and young daughter, I felt all of these questions far more sharply. Then, it was my heart that was cut up into a thousand jagged pieces as I wept through his funeral.

It could be a chronic illness.

A prolonged season of unemployment.

A divorce.

An estranged relationship.

The loss of someone you can never replace.

Maybe even the loss of your faith in God.

Whatever it is, we need friends - and a community - where we don't always have to rush to The Right Answer.

Photo by Shane on Unsplash