You Can Do Miracles

When you believe. The words of this hit song are more true than we might think. You can do miracles. What hinders you is your lack of faith. Consider one of the major themes preached by Jesus. To wit:

Believe ye that I am able to do this? – Matt 9:28

Thy faith has made thee whole – Matt 9:22

Be not afraid, only believe – Mark 5:36

If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth – Mark 9:23

That is only a taste of what he preached. While many of his sayings on faith are regarding faith in God, don’t think that the principle of faith are only limited to believers in Christ. Faith itself has an even broader scope. I do not diminish the immense value of faith in God and Christ. Yet, I do not want to limit the application of faith to that toward God only. Faith is an inherent quality of man. While it applies to God, it also applies to virtually everything else in life. Faith is a difficult thing to obtain. It is also fragile. Consider another thing Jesus said:

O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? – Matt 17:17

This saying couldn’t be more true today. Men’s faith have been beaten and battered for years and decades. Faith is ridiculed. It is mocked. That we pay the toll is all too clear. We are filled with fear and doubt. We are crippled by our lack of faith. Indeed, if we only believe, we would do miracles.

Crippled by Fear

How many of us are crippled by fear? Fear of failure. Fear of being mocked. Fear even of success? These fears boil down to our lack of faith. We just don’t believe. We are told – “you can’t do that, only so and so can” and “be realistic”. We tell ourselves that we can’t do that. We are afraid to even try. Examine yourself – what fears hold you back from what you would do if you believed?

Look at the common thread running through the poor – they don’t believe that they can do much of anything. Have you ever met someone like that? You can so easily see their talents and potential. You know with certainty that they could do great things – if only they believed. Today’s youth are afflicted by the lack of faith than ever before. Public schools have done their job well. Designed to bring uniformity and deliver the masses ready to submit to their industrial masters – they have succeeded. Neither have those who attended private schools escaped the conditioning either. I encourage everyone to read John Taylor Gatto’s book The Underground History of American Education. You can read it free – here. You can’t even imagine the damage done to each of us by these schools. John Gatto found that the bell curve is a myth when it comes to peoples abilities. He found that every one of us is capable of doing great things. Only after compulsory education has diminished us does it ring true. It is no wonder why we have so little faith. He also found that even after the damage public education has done, we can still overcome it – if we believe in ourselves and try.

My Testimony

I am one of those who have suffered the degradation from public schools. I was often laughed at and ridiculed. Fortunately, I had loving parents at home. They helped me through the worst of it. Many of us have not been so fortunate. I also learned early on to not trust those who tried to kill my faith. Most have not fared as well. Why I learned to distrust them instead of myself I do not know. Perhaps God’s hand was upon me. To what end? Perhaps so that I could help others to believe. I want badly for you my reader to believe. To believe in yourself, and to believe in God. Even if you resist the latter, at least believe in yourself. Perhaps when you believe that you are “wonderfully and fearfully made”, you can believe the latter as well. Then you really can do miracles.

As I was saying, it was a blessing that I did not believe the naysayers of my childhood. It was only because I discovered how wrong they were. As I became a man, I began to encounter difficulties that would test my faith. In each and every case, I found that I could overcome. Sometimes, the result really was miraculous. Here are some examples:

Ice Skating

When I graduated from high school, I began skating down at the local rink. I never found something I loved so much. My mother tried to discourage me. She told me I had weak ankles like she did. I did not believe her. Within six months, I could do the entire repertoire of full revolution jumps and was working toward doing double revolution jumps. I didn’t even have any lessons. Had I continued working as I had, I have no doubt I could have become a competitive skater. During that time, I learned that top contenders are not so much gifted in any way, but merely determined. Their success is not due to special talent, but rather initiative, perseverance and hard work. I did not go from not knowing how to skate to mastery without a lot of these things either. For those six months, I skated at least 4 hours a day, 7 days a week. I was very determined.

Math

For many of us, math is not our strong suit. I did not have that problem. However, early in my career as an engineer, I tried starting my own company by writing an engineering software program. There was one particular engineering paper that I needed to use in my program, but I couldn’t understand the math. It was like reading Greek. Writing the program was no picnic either. Every few weeks, I came upon an intractable problem that I couldn’t solve. It was usually mathematical in nature. I had the benefits of being newly married which includes a lovely young woman who believes you can do anything. She would always tell me I could solve the problem. I didn’t ever believe her, but persevered on the basis of her faith at least. To my amazement, each and every time, I conquered these problems as they arose. They kept getting more difficult, but also kept falling to my perseverance, buoyed by my bride’s faith in me (misplaced in my mind I’ll have you know).

After over a year of this process, I finally had to come to terms with that “Greek” paper. During that time, I had mastered a lot of mathematics. They may have taught me this math during college, but if they had I didn’t learn it. Anyway, one day at lunch I sat down to read the incomprehensible paper again. This time, during the lunch hour itself, I not only understood the paper, but was able to derive and verify all the equations for myself. What formally was an insurmountable obstacle, now was child’s play. How this change came to be, I do not know. During the year or so of programming, I did not even crack a math book. I learned mathematics in the same way a child learns to speak. Now one could take away from this story the lesson that we don’t learn very much in school compared to what we can learn on our own by actually doing. That would be a valid lesson. It is not the only lesson though. An even greater lesson is what faith can achieve. What obstacle is too great if we believe and persevere? I never found any. I was over my head mathematically, and I had no one to turn to for insight. I didn’t even have faith in myself. The faith my wife had in me with my own perseverance was enough. I performed miracles.

Other Miracles

While personally I have sought and found healing for at least three incurable diseases (incurable by conventional doctors that is), I have an even better example. The story is beautifully portrayed in the movie Lorenzo’s Oil. In this incredible story, two devoted parents have a son with a genetic disease. No doctor can help. Their son will become crippled and die within a few years. They don’t accept the hand dealt to them however. While the boy’s mother organizes the best medical minds and support of the world, his father spends his life at the medical library first learning the basic biological sciences needed, then studies the particular molecular biology papers that shed light on his son’s condition. After years of agonizing effort, this simple man without any kind of degree in science, discovers the key to his son’s condition and obtains a treatment. The progress of the disease is arrested and even partially reversed. If this story weren’t absolutely true, it would be unbelievable. To summarize, a simple man with only a small amount of formal education is able to learn enough biochemistry to solve a problem that the top researchers in the world could not do. That is a miracle.

You Can Do Miracles

You must believe and persevere. Many do not even start because of their unbelief. Of those who do start, many fall short because they don’t persevere. Don’t be one of them. There is virtually nothing you cannot do if you will only believe and not give up. What are your dreams? What is keeping you from realizing them? Others aren’t holding you back. Circumstances aren’t holding you back. Only you are holding you back.

I have always wanted to play the violin. I did not pick one up until I was nearly 40 years old. Now, as I approach 50, I am finally getting the nack of it. I have not even practiced very hard. If I did, it would not have taken me 10 years to get where I am. I could have had it much sooner.

I have always wanted to learn to read the New Testament in Greek. I tried and failed many times. I discovered a different approach a little over two years ago, and tried again. In just over a year, I realized my dream. I still have a ways to go, but the words are no longer “Greek to me”. I am no language whiz either. I took two years of Spanish in high school and all I learned was “Hola, Que tal. Me llamo Paco, e tu?” Too bad my name is not Paco. At least then I could say that much.

If I can learn to play one of the most difficult instruments and to read one of the most difficult languages, having no aptitude for either, and at middle age, why can’t you fulfill one of your dreams? There can be no better time than now. There have never been more or better resources available. With the miracle of the Internet, nearly limitless knowledge is close at hand. This website was created for this very purpose –  to help its readers to overcome their limitations and achieve their dreams.

I can hear what some of you are saying: “Listen Scott, you are an exceptional person. I am not. You may be able to do all these things, but I cannot. ” To that kind of talk, I can only say one thing – balderdash. As John Gatto discovered, we are all wonderfully made. You have only been conditioned to mediocrity by formal education and society. It just is not true. I am not any more exceptional than you are. Each of us is gifted by God to fulfill our unique purpose in life. You really are gifted and can do  more than you ever dreamed of.

Don’t put it off working on your dream until another day. This very day, take one tiny step toward one of your dreams. Then, make plans to take another step tomorrow, and the day after that. Believe in yourself. Buy motivational books and tapes. Listen to motivating music. Tune out the critics and naysayers. Make plans and take action. Persevere. Don’t give up. You can do it. You really can. I believe in you.

The Underground History
of American Education

You Can Do Miracles by Provide Your Own is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This entry was posted in Living and tagged , , , , . Section: . Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

One Comment

  1. Coda
    Posted August 18, 2011 at 4:09 am | Permalink

    Great article. Exactly the kind of thing I needed to hear.