John Van Diest

Review of the Guideposts edition

Divided into eight sections, the stories fall into one of eight categories: Miracles of Destiny, Miracles of Provision, Miracles and Angels, Miracles for Everyday Life, Miracles of Prayer, Miracles of Healing, Miracles of Changed Lives, and The Two Greatest Miracles. Several of the authors have instantly-recognizable names: Billy Graham, James Dobson, Mother Teresa, Corrie ten Boom, Charles Colson, and Max Lucado. Others are people from all walks of life . . . everyday folks caught up in the unexplainable, the mysterious, the miraculous.

Biblical times called for biblical miracles, “proof” of God’s presence. A burning bush; a wooden staff turning into a snake. Moses parting the sea. Jesus healing the blind man, raising Lazarus from the dead. But it is a commonly-held belief that God no longer intervenes in the things of the world. It isn’t that He cannot, it’s simply that He does not.

Or does He?

Here are the stories, filled with the inexplicable, the miraculous.

Billy Graham tells of a shipwreck survivor marooned on an uninhabited island. He built a small hut and saved all he could from the ship. Every day, he scanned the horizon and prayed for a ship to come to rescue him.

One day, he returned to his hut to find it on fire; everything he’d managed to save now destroyed in the blaze. In despair, the man looked at the ashes but shortly after the fire had consumed his hut, a ship arrived. “We saw your smoke signal,” they said, “and hurried here.”

Was the fire a disaster? Or was it a way for God to work a miracle, using the fire to signal the ship to rescue the stranded man?

Anya, sitting in the car, waiting, while her brother had his piano lesson. She used the time until it was her turn for her lesson to memorize verses for her school Bible Quiz Team. She stayed in the car so that she could repeat the words aloud, helping her to memorize them. But on this one day, her seven-year-old brother Zeek insisted that his sister listen to his lesson; he went out and brought her into the house where the children had their lessons each week. It made no sense to the adults; they were surprised that Anya had agreed to her brother’s illogical request to come inside and listen to his lesson.

Five minutes into Zeek’s lesson, a loud noise came from outside. A car sped away; the teacher suggested they’d heard the car backfire. But the teacher’s husband rushed in, interrupting the lesson once again. He told them of a gunshot that had shattered the car window. The lesson forgotten, everyone rushed out to see.

The broken window . . . on the passenger side of the car . . . left a bullet in the backrest of the seat where Anya had been sitting just five minutes earlier.

Coincidence? Or did God use a young boy to save his big sister’s life?

These, and another sixty-plus short stories recount instances of incredible, mystifying interventions . . . heart-warming, faith-filled, inspiring tales to ponder as these true accounts of answered prayer and the miraculous miracles of God.

Highly recommended.… (mehr)