A Disastrous Miracle

In his book titled “It Is Toward Evening”, Vance Havner tells the story of a small town that made it’s living entirely from growing cotton. It was not a great living; nevertheless, it was a living. Then calamity struck as the boll weevil invaded the community, destroyed the economy, and threatened to ruin everyone. The farmers were forced to switch to peanuts and other crops that eventually brought them greater return than they would ever have made by raising cotton. Ultimately, what they thought was a disaster became the basis for undreamed of prosperity. To mark their appreciation, they erected a monument-to the boll weevil. To this very day in that little southern town, that monument stands as a celebration of that disastrous miracle.

Too often we want to forget painful memories…tribulations in our life, don’t we? We want to move on to good times and leave the past behind.

I think one mistake we in the Christian world make is to focus only on all of the ways we’ve been blessed while we gloss over the trials and tribulations that have been visited upon us. But God doesn’t want us to do that. He wants us to recognize the trials that we suffer as blessings in themselves…events that serve to prepare us for greater service to him.

1 Pet 5:10 tells us “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.”

God wants us to mark the path of our growth. He wants to use our disasters to produce miracles in our lives. The suffering that we endure often serves a far greater purpose than the good times that come our way. The blessings that come as a result of His purpose being fulfilled are eternal.

Obviously it’s difficult to pretend we enjoy going through hardship. I’m sure the farmers in that small town weren’t having a good time watching the boll weevils eat their livelihood. But if they could have seen the end of the story, the prosperity that would ultimately come out of disaster, they would have no doubt had reason to rejoice while the boll weevils were feasting.

As God’s children we do know the end of the story, don't we? In the midst of trouble, in the midst of hardship, we know that God is working out His plan. We don’t need to wait for that miracle to be completely fulfilled to rejoice. We can erect a monument of gratitude in our lives to daily express appreciation to Him for his deliverance from trials and the incredible miracle that He is accomplishing in us through His Son.



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"I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word." Psalms 119:15 - 16