I Don’t Get It

Sandy Dickson

     How dare they? There are so many things to which that question fits.

     What’s this about things that should be private issues, not only becoming public, but being touted on TV or the Internet in somewhat of a proud manner by the offenders? There are often kids in their early teens bragging about their intentions for early motherhood and or their numerous sexual partners. Also common are people proudly talking about their myriad sexual exploits and partners.

     What about Michael Jackson’s well-known trademark of grabbing his crotch? What is  that supposed to mean?

     Most every channel at night is rife with murder plots. I don’t know how they keep thinking of new murder and other sordid crime plots for all those shows every night of the week, but they are never-ending.

     Another thing I don’t get is why people don’t believe in miracles. I mean honest-to goodness-miracles, not that one’s husband finally turned loose of the remote or that a certain sports team finally won a big game.

     A couple weeks ago in my own church, a member testified to her own private miracle that occurred during a conference. The official definition of miracle according to the American College Encyclopedia is, ‘An effect in the physical world which surpasses all known human or natural powers and is therefore ascribed to supernatural agency.’

     The speaker at this conference, David Herzog, is one through whom God is known to work as a Divine healer, and among the common occurrences resulting in his services are that some people in attendance receive a gold tooth or some similar and miraculous manifestation that can only be by God’s hand. Yes, I know it sounds phenomenal and it is, but it is completely within God’s capability. The lady named Debbie at our church was invited to tell our congregation of her own personal touch from God. She was involved with the rest of the congregation worshipping at this conference; praising, praying. When the conference was over, Debbie was asked by her friend next to her if she could check to see if Debbie received any gold teeth. Debbie complied and was to find out she had not. That was okay. She wasn’t expecting any, nor had she prayed for any dental work. As the congregation was leaving, someone else stopped to ask Debbie if she received any gold teeth, and she almost said no, that she had not, but she told me later, “The Lord prevented me from saying it.” Instead, when the person asked her to open her mouth, Debbie complied. Surprisingly, there was a gold tooth there. And as the friend looked on, so did others and they all witnessed another tooth as it turned to gold!

     Debbie is a wonderful Christian and she willingly shares her story as well as a view of her teeth to anyone who wants to see. I saw them Sunday. At first I didn’t see them easily, but then my church friend next to me said, “Look at the inside side, near the roof of her mouth.” And there they were—yes, they. There were four of them on her top right that appeared to be gold. I was to find out later, that one is solid gold and others are only gold on the inside side. The next Sunday after her church announcement to us, she told us she had been to her dentist, who wondered if she had been seeing another practitioner, and when she told him of her miracle, he had a hard time believing it. In addition, a gap that had formed between a crown and another tooth had gotten filled in in the miracle process. She said it’s much smoother than it used to be. And with the gold in her mouth, I can safely say, there are very few people who could afford that.

     Here’s the part I don’t get. Why don’t people believe?

     I was telling two co-workers in my office about this phenomenon the next day. One, a church-going person, I might add, (though not my church) said, “Oh, I don’t believe that.”

     I said, “I don’t care whether you believe it or not. It’s still a fact and it did happen.”

     The second lady in the office said nothing, though she is also a church-goer. I took it that she didn’t want to get involved. She didn’t believe it, but didn’t want to refute it and get into the discussion. I figure if she had believed it, she would have spoken up.

     This whole attitude ticks me off greatly, and if I have that reaction, think how God must feel. How can people doubt God’s capabilities? Just because they aren’t every day occurrences, like the birth of babies, which are also miracles, they don’t believe them.

     Here God is, evidence all around of His greatness and majesty, and certainly there is proof all around us that He is a God of miracles and endless capabilities. He is the Master and Creator of the very universe. He Who flung the stars into space, set the earth and planets on their axes and created all within and without: the seas, moon, sun…And He created all the gems and minerals for that matter, including gold! Why can’t He be thought capable of putting it in someone’s teeth or creating teeth out of it for that matter.

     Why wouldn’t He do such work in silver or more commonly used dental material? Because then everyone would say, “Oh,

some dentist did that.” It’s like the true story I heard in another church of a black lady who lost her thumb in some way. She prayed for restoration, and God did so. He gave her a white thumb. Now why wouldn’t He have given her a black thumb? Because then people would doubt she received it of God, but rather, that she was born with it and was making the whole story up. Sadly, there are enough people who don’t believe, even with those grandiose manifestations.

     Yes, I did say that the co-worker who announced immediately that she didn’t believe it is a church-goer. It leaves me to believe that either she goes to a church that doesn’t believe in such miracles, but only surface Biblical things or that she is one of the masses who believes that way herself.

     Why would someone limit God like that? And why approach a belief system in God and the Bible in such a cafeteria-style manner—going through the line taking only what you want and leaving the rest? Those who do are letting their blindness, disbelief and lack of faith, rob them of a precious relationship with the very Creator. Nothing is worth that sacrifice, even what they consider the privilege of being pridefully stubborn.

     Another miracle, at least, I believe it was more than chance, is that the following day after I related this story, I had some out-of-the-office errands to run and didn’t get there until about 2:00. I had just turned my computer on and it was getting the screen up when the very lady of which I spoke, Debbie, walked into the office, which, to my knowledge, was the first time she had been there. At least it’s not a common occurance. I personally think God had something to do with that too. She had come on a business matter and hadn’t even thought to look me up, but there she was. I called to her from my desk toward the back of the room, and said, “Would you mind sharing your experience with these ladies?”

     Personable, a good servant of God and willing to extol and share His blessings, she willingly repeated the story in more detail than I had relayed the previous day. Then she showed the doubting one her gold teeth.

     I said, “You can tell people about it, and some just say they don’t believe it.” I didn’t name the guilty one.

     The receptionist who had originally announced her doubt, said, “I don’t believe it.”

     I said, “I wasn’t going to say that.”

     I don’t know whether she believes it now, but I don’t think so, or she wouldn’t have put it in past tense.

     She justified her conclusive disbelief, saying, “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

     I assured her that such things are written in books and told in experiences of others and God’s miracles. The truth is, they are getting more and more commonplace as He does His outpouring in the last days. But narrow-minded surface believers would never run across those books or seek them out, and if they found one, they probably wouldn’t read it anyway, or believe it if they did.

     The other co-worker who heard my story the day before seated directly across from the receptionist, kept to her computer. She didn’t look up or exhibit any interest at all. To me it was saying, “I don’t believe it either, but I don’t want to say it and I don’t want to get involved.” Nor did she want to get involved in refuting it, and probably knew she couldn’t with Debbie standing right there with her gold teeth.

     I don’t know what they think now. They probably don’t want to believe it. It’s more than they can handle. They, like so many who claim to be believers, want to limit God.

     I’m extremely aggravated at this narrow-mindedness, so God must really be ticked. Yet every time they go outside, they step into His wonder and magnificence in the universe. His sun comes up every morning and provides sustenance to all life, including their own and their very breath. 

     Debbie said just enough. She said God really wants to bless us and wants us to know Him and of His desire to do so.

     The pair didn’t show any sign of believing and it wasn’t discussed afterward, at least in my presence, though I suspect that there may have been some discussion in my absence about my gullibility or some such thing. It can’t be refuted, but to them, it can’t be believed, so they say nothing. They probably don’t know what to believe because they can’t explain it in their mortal minds. However, this is beyond mortal and that’s the whole point. What a shame that they are missing out on a huge blessing by denying God’s capabilities.

     I’m ashamed of such smallness of humans to limit God. I apologize to God for it, though I’m sure He understands it. He made us. But then He wants to go beyond us so that our faith can be stretched and so that it proves His worthiness and majesty in a way we can see it. Faith is that which goes beyond our mortal limitations of logic. Nothing, even not having to admit we are wrong, is worth sacrificing the blessings we get from recognizing God’s wondrous powers and capabilities.

     I hope this works on them in the way a seed grows. Maybe some day, the doubters of His works and capabilities will believe and quit limiting Him in their minds. But I’m comforted to think that one day they will be given to this understanding and acceptance, though most-likely not in this life.

     Two books that are written by David Herzog about such miraculous manifestations are ‘Mysteries of Glory Unveiled’ and ‘Glory Invasion.’