All miracle-work is not the work of a moment as so often men imagine. -- "God Calling," April 4.
I'm guessing all miracle-work is akin to priming a pump. A miracle doesn't happen in the instant of seeing the need for a miracle, and you can't get water from an unused pump the minute you need water. As a little kid out on the farm, I learned that in order to get water from a pump, I had to pour some water into the pump first.
I can see the similarity in learning to change my mind...which I consider miracle-work. I have come to believe that is the hardest thing we'll ever be asked to do...to simply change our mind. And we cannot do that by our unaided will alone...we must go to God initially. At first that kinda leaves us feeling like we're in no-man's land...can't change our mind by our unaided will alone, can't ask for self-determined objectives.
Here's where we "prime the pump." We show our willingness for God to change our mind by changing our line of thought...from God-please-cure-my-friend-now to mentally seeing a field of flowers, a butterfly, a rainbow...anything pleasing to the mind's eye.
It is in that willingness to focus on other than our wants that we detach from those wants, if only for a moment...because we will return in thought to what we believe needs to be fixed until we learn the relief of discipline. The discipline of repeatedly bringing our own mind back to God's wonders. There is no problem to be fixed when we're focusing on God's wonders.
This is how we learn that our mind does not control us, we control our mind...by ceding control to God.
Thank you.
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