Miracles and Suffering

Antônio* is one of our primary disciples. He is the patriarch of his family and a leader in the community. Every Saturday morning, we have a Bible study at Antônio’s house. When everyone is in town, we have 15-30 people packed into his wooden house. The people form a circle with most of them sitting in plastic chairs, while others sit on a table, on the floor, or stand. Antônio invites people to the study and hosts it. We see God at work in his life and pray some day this will result in Antônio being a pastor of this nascent church meeting in his home.

One day Antônio went upriver with his family to work their farm. When he got back he told me everything was going well at the farm, but that something was hurting in his back and he wasn’t able to raise his arms. He told me he took some medicine but that didn’t help. He said next he prayed to God, but God didn’t heal him. So he called on the Shaman, or witch-doctor, to come heal him. The Shaman performed some rituals and “healed” Antônio.

You see, Antônio grew up in a culture in which they regularly sang, danced, gave offerings, and performed other rituals for their ancestor-spirit-gods in order that those ancestor-spirit-gods would provide them with health, fertility, rain, food, etc. In his worldview, the powers-that-be must be appeased and even manipulated in order that he might get what he needs or wants. If he doesn’t receive what he needs he calls another shaman, performs a different ritual, or calls upon another power. (I think it is at least in part because of this worldview that the “prosperity gospel” is so prevalent across the Amazon and the whole of the Global South.) In Antônio’s mind if he’s not being cured it’s because he’s doing something wrong; therefore, he changes things up until something works. So what do we do?

On the one hand, we pray that God would perform miracles! I do believe that God is the Almighty, All-Powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things. I believe he is more than capable of healing anyone of any pain or sickness and I believe he still acts in supernatural ways in the world today. Therefore, in the spirit of 1 Kings 18 where God showed himself more powerful than Baal, we do pray that God would heal people like Antônio in order that they might see that our God is the one true God and that their Shamanistic rituals are empty. We pray that such miracles might operate as they did in Acts 14:3 where it says that Paul and Barnabas spoke “boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.” In other words, we pray that next time God would heal Antônio as a confirmation of the message that we are preaching and that such a miracle would help Antônio repent completely of his past ritualistic practices.

On the other hand we are hesitant to ask for miracles. Why? First, we don’t want the miracles to just play into Antônio’s worldview without shaking it up. Should God heal him this time, what will happen next time? What if God doesn’t heal him 6 months from now? Will Antônio simply find another god or ritual that works for him then? We want Antônio’s faith to be firmly in God, not in miracles. Second, we know that God doesn’t always heal people. God has plans and purposes for us even — or dare I say especially — in our suffering. God has designed suffering in such a way that it ought to cause us to depend upon him more and increase our faith (Romans 5:3-5; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4; 4:17; James 1:12).

So what do we pray? We pray for a transformed worldview. We pray that Antônio and countless others might be able to say just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said to King Nebuchadnezzar right before being thrown into the fire: “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

We do pray for miracles and we want Antônio to pray for miracles. But we want Antônio to have his eyes firmly fixed on God alone. We want him to be so transformed that he would be willing to suffer with God than to turn back to his old ways.

*Name changed for privacy.