I woke up last night with this thought going through my head: Miracles are messy. It was powerful enough that I sent myself a note on my Blackberry and then had trouble getting back to sleep.

When I woke up I was still thinking about it. This simple little statement, miracles are messy, sums up something I've dealt with years: smug, intellectual Christians (usually in leadership positions), who are absolutely stuck in their academic worldview of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ came to this earth to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus Christ performed miracles. He said that after His Spirit was poured out on all flesh we would do even greater things than He did. And this is where you begin to lose people.

Miracles are messy. When Jesus began to do miracles the Pharisees began to hate Him even more. They were losing their influence to a simple carpenter's son who just happened to be able to turn water into wine and heal diseases. I mean, how do you compete with a miracle worker!

There are religious leaders today that are no different. Some of them teach in seminaries and some lead churches and ministries. Miracles just don't work in their world because it threatens their ability to control people. Miracles put the focus on what only God Himself can do and not on them.

In the West we're totally mesmerized by "great teachers". Jesus won followers because He taught with great authority, but He also won followers because He performed miracles. I'm not speaking of the "wow" factor; this has only temporary impact. I'm speaking about the people who received the miracles. Their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, were changed forever.

This is my biggest question. For those who don't believe in miracles, why not? Please explain who is hurt by a miracle? Who loses? What's the downside? The argument that now we have the Bible and we don't need miracles is not only inaccurate it's silly. People of faith believe no matter what; they don't need miracles to believe. Miracles are God's to do and He's never stopped meeting miraculous needs and meeting them miraculously.

One of my favorite miracles was a sixteen year old girl in Darkhan, Mongolia. Her father broke her arm and she went to the hospital to have it set. At some point she heard that I was in town and she decided to ignore the hospital treatment and find me. She believed that if she could find "the man of God" that I would pray for her and God would heal her. She did finally find me, we prayed, and God miraculously healed her broken arm. It wasn't medically necessary, at least to our understanding at the time, and she could have received medical treatment, but God decided to honor her.

Why does God do miracles for some and others never receive theirs? I have no idea. But, that never stops me from praying for people who have big needs, or even small needs. Why should I get in the way of their prayers and their faith?

And why should any one else?

Believe in God and it can get messy. God will shake you up. He'll shake up your family. And He'll bless you in ways you could never have imagined. Jesus said, "Only believe."

Try being childlike in your walk with God, try it for a month and see what happens. I dare you.