Miracle Power at Your Fingertips

Words are powerful things. I once heard a stand-up comic lament: "Only words mumbled in church and you’re married. Another few words mumbled in your sleep and you're divorced!”

Proverbs tell us: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver" (Prv 25:11). For better or worse, words have a powerful effect on us all. Psychologists claim that even a single word can release compelling power. "Sale" is a word that will fill a store. Shouting "fire!" will empty it.

St. Augustine was converted by the power of a single sentence from the epistle to the Romans (see Romans 13:13-14). Olympic champion Willye White read Jesus' simple promise of peace (see John 14:27 which calmed her pre-competition tension much that she went on to win the women's long jump (affirming yet again that "a Bible that's falling apart belongs to someone who isn't.")

Exemplifying God's typically direct approach to life’s problems is Jesus' prompting for us to use his sacred Word to release miracle power: "If you remain in me, and my word remains in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you" (Jn 15:7).

This often overlooked but portentous statement is like a misplaced key to a seldom accessed roomful of miracles. "Ask whatever you wish" is a serendipitous offer to solve every type of problem—those related to marriage and family, health, finances, addictions, spiritual need, or whatever. Sounds like the stuff of pipe-dreams, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, this miraculous potential is seldom actualized. In spite of today's renewed interest in Scripture reading and study, the enormous power of God's Word goes largely neglected and hidden for most Christians. The mountain moving dynamite is in place, but there is no detonator. That detonator is the double condition laid down in Jesus' promise that we abide in the Lord and that his word abide in us.

Speaking to an interdenominational audience in 1979, Pope John Paul Il stated that "the first priority of Christians today should be the preaching and living of God's word in all its purity and integrity, with all its exigencies and all its power.” In a 1982 allocution he again spoke of the power of God's word to contravene the "god of this age," the evil spirit that seeks to blind us to the light of the gospel (2 Cor 4:3).

The pontiff warned that "the world may accuse us of intransigence or irrelevance, but our criterion must always be fidelity to God’s word in all its fullness and power." He then added a tender word of persuasion: "Jesus himself gently challenges us, saying, in effect, ‘trust my word; trust the power of my word to attract hearts, to convince consciences, to dissipate doubts, to soothe pain, to destroy falsehood and to insure authentic Christian freedom

How can we fulfill Jesus' mandate to have his Word remain in us to release its powerful effects? Many Christians before us have given this question careful thought—the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church, for example, and other great champions of the Word through the ages. An overview of their thinking indicates three elements which we must have if God's Word is to abide powerfully in us: first, an intense attraction, a hunger for God's Word; second, a certain knowledge or familiarity with it; and third, a prayerful devotion in the use of that Word. All three elements work in concert, but it may be helpful to analyze each of them separately in upcoming articles.

Hampsch, C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications, 1995. This and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.