God of Miracles

Daniel is one of those really cool guys who, when you read his story, never seems to have lost sight of God. He just is always locked in on faithfulness, on God's heart, on God's will, and he seems to have the strength to stand up to whatever just to do what is right and holy. 

(I think Daniel probably had his moments, just like the rest of us, but his story is one of strength, courage, and steadfastness, overwhelmingly.) 

So when Daniel, who knew exile and fire and lions and persecution and hard choices and, I assume, the sometimes deafening silence of God, speaks about who God is, I listen. 

One of my favorite things that Daniel says about God is the proclamation, the prophetic reminder, the absolute assurance that God is doing miracles in heaven and on earth (6:27).

It's tempting to read this and to want think that God is moving the heavens and the earth for our sake, that the miracles that He's doing in heaven are the ones He's sending to earth, that He's preparing everything ahead of time for us and sending it down through one of those tube systems like they use at the bank. Miracles in the heavens, for the sake of the earth. 

But when I read this passage again recently, I had an entirely different image run through my head, and I love it more. 

I envisioned a God - Creator of all, Love embodied, all-knowing, all-powerful - sitting in the heavens, playing. 

Doing miracles just for the fun of it. 

Violating the established rules of creation to break through with fun, with goodness, with love, with whimsy. Pushing aside the laws of nature just because He can, just because He's, as we'd say around here, fiddlin' around. I picture a God who is doing miracles just fiddlin' around. 

He can, you know. He can do exactly that. The God who created the structure of everything can break it whenever and however He wants, for whatever reason He wants. Even if that reason is just to have some fun. I picture Him in the heavens doing all kinds of things that simply delight Him. For no other reason than the pure joy of it. 

Which is, by the way, why He created you in the first place. For the pure joy of it. 

It gives me a whole different vision of God. As Creator, yes. As Father, of course. But as joy and fun and fiddlin'. 

And I think we need that image of God sometimes. Or...a lot of the time.

I know I do.