The Word of God is filled with examples of divine intervention. All this shows us that God listens to His children, and He answers. His love for us has not changed. We can trust Him and follow Him in all things.
We find a very nice story in Numbers 17. To get back into context, the people of Israel had left Egypt for some time now, and they regularly complained about their lives in the desert. On several occasions, they doubted and aggressively criticized the leadership of Moses and Aaron. In one of these revolts, Moses proved to the people that he was their leader by praying to God to open the earth and to swallow up alive some critics. And God did it (Numbers 16:30-33). A fire killed the other rebels. Then those who remained were scared and complained about all these deaths (Numbers 16:41). After a moment of anger, God agreed to forgive, and He showed compassion by finding another, completely contrary way to prove Aaron’s authority.
Instead of using death as confirmation, God used life. In Numbers 17, all the leaders of Israel had to present a staff to represent them. A long piece of dry wood, completely dead. All the sticks were placed in the tent of testimony (v.4) and they were left there all night. “Now on the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds, produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.” (Numbers 17:8 NASB). God has found a way to answer the doubts of the people (“Are you really chosen from God?”), answer the people’s criticism (“Are you going to stop killing our rebellious brothers?”), all this while responding to the need of Moses and Aaron to consolidate their authority. With 1 sign, God answered every one! A supernatural miracle, incontestable; an idea that Moses or Aaron could never have dreamed of.
By this very beautiful miracle of flowers and fruit, God first teaches us that He is listening to us. When you pray, even if you believe that heaven is closed and God is on vacation, He is not. In fact, God not only listens to your prayer He also listens to all your words, whether positive or discouraged. And He always prepares an answer.
This story also teaches us that God has a thousand ways to respond. You think that your situation is impossible, it is not for God. “Behold, I will do something new, about to come: will you not know it? I will put a way in the wilderness, and rivers in loneliness “(Isaiah 43:19 KJV). Our heavenly Father has a lot of imagination! He can inspire you to a solution that is completely out of the box!
But this beautiful story also teaches us** that it is not because God acts in a way, that He will always do it that way.** He grew almonds on a dry stick. Did the Israelites then stop sowing almond seeds? “No need to plant almonds, they will grow by themselves on sticks!” No, of course! Just because a person met their spouse, miraculously, in a shopping center, that does not mean all romantic relationships will be created in shopping centers! Yes, miracles happen here and then. But most of the time, God responds to our needs by natural laws. If the producers decide to stop growing almonds, that they decide to wait for God to produce almonds without any effort on their part, they will probably never have almonds.
God does not want lazy children. The people who followed Joshua had to conquer the promised land and wage war on the occupiers. Be in awe of the surrounding miracles, but be prepared to make the effort to meet your life partner. Maybe in your case, you will have to make spiritual war to meet them, or maybe you will have to move to another city to find them. God does not always act in the same way, we must learn to follow Him, to listen to Him and to move in the direction He indicates to us. Knowing that sometimes God prefers to shape our character by making us work, instead of giving us our answer without effort, and without transformation.