"Why Did Miracles happen in Such a Worldly Environment? Did That Spiritually Endorse that Church?"

I often come across many stories about miracles that happened back in the Church of God.

I know of a few personal recollections when I was in the Worldwide Church of God of people who do remember incidents that happened with people in the church. And I believe them.

There was the person who, she reports, "had an angel that looked like her dead ex-husband who opened the Apartment outer gate for her" when she could not get in.

There was the lady who was able to get to the Feast in a car that was missing a vital component that should have rendered the car un-driveable.

I knew these people enough to know they would not make up such stories. Most of the people in the Church in the laity were decent, hard-working, common folks - who were doing what they thought in their heart was the right thing to do.

When I hear of miracles for people that happened in the Church, I absolutely believe it. Because I believe that God looks at a person's heart, and mind - and not the physical organization that they are a part of.

The upper executive management of the Armstrong Business would use such miracles as evidence that their organization had the backing of God. Armstrong would do the same kind of analysis - putting organization ahead of individual. I believe God has a different approach.

In every instance of Jesus' interaction with people when He walked the Earth, he dealt with them individually. The thief on the Cross. The woman caught in an adulterous relationship. Mary Magdalene. He is involved in a personal relationship - not as a corporate chief executive.

When I needed clothes when I was a child - they came. When I prayed to be able to go to SEP - that prayer was answered. I ended up going to SEP three times - once as a camper, twice as a worker. It wasn't that God was behind the organization. God is behind us individually, and personally. God looks at our hearts - not at our involvement with a business that was masquerading as a church.

Every one of us has the freedom of choice in what we do. Every one of us has our belief in what we think is right to the best of our abilities. Yet one still may ask "Why"? "Why would God HELP me go to a 'feast' that was based on lies and the faulty imagination of a salesman? Wouldn't he rather want me to stay home?'

I think the answer has everything to do with what is best for us personally. Maybe a person needed to have a lift in life emotionally. Life living in the Church was hard. You paid your taxes, then the church took twenty to thirty percent of your income. You had trouble raising your family. Perhaps you had a "non-converted" spouse. Financial troubles were rampant, because your income just wasn't there. You couldn't have "worldly" friends deeply, and you had to give up the "fun" activities on Saturdays. Not to mention health issues. What I am saying is: Individually speaking - maybe the benefits of being there were better for the soul then if one wasn't there. Maybe there was a need for a 'boost' of positive faith - in Jesus, not the corporation. We can't always understand the reasons why things happen. But if there's one thing I have learned, is that Jesus does everything based on his love for His Children and what is best for them in the long-term (eternally), then what they are involved with in the short term (a cult).

Jesus said that He will never leave us, nor forsake us. He's been with His people throughout all their life experiences. Though many of us were born into the Church, others made the decision to join the Church, regardless of the fact of what the Church really was - it does not negate the fact that Jesus said He will never leave us, nor forsake us. That uncompromising fact - the love of Jesus that knows no boundaries - is all the explanation a person needs as to the miracles that happen - not only in the lives of members of the Worldwide Church of God - but the miracles that have happened with all peoples of all beliefs and of all classes and abilities.

God is a God who is concerned with every one of His children, and He wants them all to reach the highest goal that they can possibly reach. He'll do everything possible in His will and in his immeasurable love - including miracles - no matter where they are in life. That's the kind of God we serve. He's with us in the storms, as well as in the sunshine - personally, for whatever is personally for our ultimate good in the grand scheme of what we do not know or understand - yet.