Greater than These

One night at church someone prayed and a simple phrase jumped out at me. She prayed that God would open "blind spiritual eyes." I remembered that my pastor had once said that all the miracles Jesus did had a deeper meaning, like God could open physical eyes, but also spiritual eyes. John 14:12 says "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." Suddenly, I realized that Jesus opened blind eyes, deaf ears, etc, but left His Spirit behind so that through Him we would open eyes to His glory and ears to His word. Though I'm not saying God doesn't heal physical ailments today, because He does, the greater miracle is when someone is introduced to the love of a Savior.
I was overcome when God showed me this, because I realized that God's definition of what was great and who was great was so different from mine. I wondered how many people God might have touched through me while I was off wondering when He would heal someone's physical body and thinking God wasn't moving. But God showed me an even greater truth about this concept tonight.
I was looking at the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17. The pastor asked why Jesus told the one who came back to thank Him that his faith had made him whole, when the other nine must have had some faith and were healed. I immediately thought of an answer, though I have looked at this story many times without ever being satisfied with the ending myself. I realized there was a difference between being healed, and being made whole. It turned out that this was exactly where the pastor was going!
I visited a leper colony in Ghana - it was one of the most terrible days of my life. What was so awful to me was not just the people I saw, but the fact that the people trying to help them honored all religions and didn't share the Gospel of Christ with them. It seemed like such a waste to me. Picturing these people now, I thought of how amazing it would be for them if God healed them. Then I realized that for a spiritual miracle to be even greater than a physical one, how amazing must it be to discover life in Christ! That's how great our God is, that receiving life back into decaying limbs is nothing compared to His love! Like C.S. Lewis says, we often ask for too little because we can't imagine the glory.
You know, it's scary to imagine that much glory!!! Our God is an awesome God, and may His spiritual miracles pour down from heaven.