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And he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.  Matthew 13:58

It sure was frustrating, but it turned out to be my own fault. Let me explain. I was standing in front of the television set trying to get a new DVD to play. The DVD began to play, but when I would walk away, it would abruptly stop playing. The power to the DVD player would turn itself off and the entire screen would go blank.

I walked back to the silly thing and tried it again. And again the process repeated itself. It worked fine for a while, and when I walked away - it shut down once more.

Finally, I was determined to get the thing working right. I stood there and turned the thing on again. (I was getting pretty good at it by now) I watched the FBI copyright warning scroll across the screen. The Menu Window appeared. I selected a scene. I pressed the Play button. And I watched for a full 30 seconds to make certain it really was going to work this time. The movie was now in full swing, so I walked away.

And the power shut itself off and the screen went blank once again! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!  If I had any hair left, I'd pull it out. I looked at my wife -- who by now was bent over laughing herself silly -- and then I looked over at my desk. And then I saw it. I had inadvertently laid my laptop down on top of the DVD remote control. And it was pushing the OFF button. When I walked to the television set to turn the DVD player on, I walked into the path of the remote control, thereby blocking the OFF signal it was sending. Everything worked fine until I moved out of the signal path and the OFF message was once again transmitted. I had gotten in the way -- and that caused my frustration.

You know, sometimes we get in the way of God, don't we? We do it when we have a lack of faith.

In the Bible, we read of a specific incident where the people doubted the power and authority and position of Jesus Christ. And the Word tells us "And He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." Matthew 13:58

I think that happens a lot in our lives today. God wants to do mighty works in, through and around us - but we get in his way by doubting. Think about it. How many times have you heard this... "We've never done it that way before" or "This is how we've always done it in the past." That's another way of saying "We're going to limit what we allow God to do by putting guidelines on how He can work - He's got to do things like we've always done before." 

Or, how many times have you felt the Lord leading you to do something, but you don't do it because reason says it's illogical and doesn't make any sense at all to us. That's another way of saying "We're going to limit what we allow God to do by only attempting man-sized tasks that make sense to man's logic and can be accomplished by man's ways."

God is a great big God and He wants to do "mighty works" -- but sometimes we get in the way. We think in terms of the traditions we've gotten accustomed to, or we analyze things by man's abilities instead of God's. And then we wonder why the screen goes blank and the power shuts off. Maybe it's because we stopped believing that God can accomplish the miraculous.

Christian, our God is an awesome God. And I believe He wants to do "mighty works" in our midst even today. What about you and me? Will we put our complete faith in Him and see what He will do... or will we get in the way?

- david langerfeld