Aunt Sevvy, does God do more miracles for good Adventists?
27 January 2025 |
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
Growing up as an Adventist, there always seemed to be a good supply of miracle stories showing God’s special concern for and protection of Seventh-day Adventists—stories like tornadoes that lifted just before the Adventist’s house, or the hailstorm leaving the Adventist farmer’s crop intact, or about being saved from what seemed like inevitable death in a road accident, or the doctor saying, “I’ve never seen a tumor like that just disappear—your prayers worked.” Such stories seemed always to involve good tithe-payers and Sabbath-keepers, which ensured protection.
On the other hand, we also know that tragedies afflict Adventists. Eight of the victims of the South Korean flight where 179 of 181 on board perished were Adventists or students at Adventist schools. Children were shot by a gunman at a church school in northern California. And recently, an Australian pastor was swept away in flood waters.
Have you any light to shine on these conflicting events, Aunt Sevvy?
Signed, Trying to Figure God Out
Dear Trying,
I suspect to many of us it would seem more “fair” if we could count on miracles always to happen to good Adventists, and bad things happen only to bad people. We tell our children stories about obedient children being rewarded and protected and bad children being punished—and they grow up into adults who think God acts the same way. You may even have heard Adventists say, “I was a vegetarian and Sabbath-keeper and tithe payer—why did I get cancer?” They feel let down, as though God owed them a better outcome.
Paul says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” The grown-up way to understand the world is that tragedies can happen to anyone. Yes, there are more careful ways to live, such as eating healthy and not smoking. But there is no guarantee. In the end, even the most sincere praying people die—there are, to Aunty’s knowledge, only a couple of exceptions in the Bible. Even Jesus, the best man who ever lived, suffered death!
The question this raises is how much we should expect from God when we pray for miraculous help: for a healing of a disease, or for rain to fall on our fields, or for safety when traveling—and whether we should pray for such interventions at all. Perhaps that’s something we can discuss in the comments.
Aunt Sevvy
Aunt Sevvy has collected her answers into a book! You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.
You can write to Aunt Sevvy at DearAuntSevvy@gmail.com. Your real identity will never be revealed.