Everyday Miracles For Everyday People

By Joel Houglum and Rita Houglum

Everyday miracles are God’s intervention in our everyday lives. Our heavenly Father is a good and loving God who wants to help us with our everyday problems and concerns. Through scripture and personal examples of everyday miracles, this book documents God’s desire to help all of His children who request His help. It answers some common questions and misconceptions that people have regarding His love, forgiveness, and His will on earth. Most importantly, the book explains how everyday people can have a better understanding of His love for them, and obtain the Father’s help in their lives every day. Do you need everyday miracles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Houglum Books
• Release date: Oct 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516398751

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Everyday Miracles for Everyday People

by Joel & Rita Houglum

Copyright © 2016 Joel & Rita Houglum ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This work may not be used in any form, or reproduced by any means, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

Copies of this book can be ordered at: HouglumBooks.com

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture references are taken from the New King James Version® (NKJ) Copyright ©1983 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other Bible versions used are:

CLB: The Children’s Living Bible, ©1970 by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60187. All rights reserved

KJV: King James Version, ©2000 by The Zondervan Corporation. All rights reserved

NIV: Holy Bible, New International Version, ©1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Dedication

We dedicate this book to all the pastors and ministers of the Gospel who have contributed to our faith in Jesus Christ, our understanding of the Word of God, and our realization of God as our heavenly Father. We particularly thank Dave Kaufman, Kevin Suiter, Frank Vanderbush, Rich Apfel, and Al Keller. As pastors, they and their spouses have inspired, corrected, guided, comforted, and instructed us through the Word of God during the past 35 years. Their dedication to the ministry to which God called them provided teaching and preaching of the Word of God week after week, year after year, and for that we are eternally grateful.

We also dedicate this book to our current and future grandchildren. We want them to be grounded in biblical principles and expect that this book will contribute to their understanding of those principles.

Acknowledgments

We are extremely grateful to our three children for their willingness to allow personal information about their lives to be used in this book. They are hopeful, as we are, that providing specific examples will be an encouragement to many readers. Their suggestions for improving the text were also very helpful.

The love and life our parents gave us had an immense impact on the molding of our personalities, work ethic, and love for God, family, and this country. We owe them a debt that cannot be paid.

As with our other books, we are very appreciative to Kathy Spolum. Her contributions provide us with expertise that we do not have, and her encouraging comments are always uplifting. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kathy.

Introduction

•Do you want a life changing experience?

•Do you want help solving problems, no matter how big or small?

•Do you want miracles in your life every day?

If you answered yes to these questions, then this book will lead you to that life changing experience and show you how to get the help you need with everyday miracles.

Our background

This book is based on foundational principles established in the Bible coupled with our personal experiences. To get a sense of our personal experiences, it will be helpful for you to know some aspects regarding our backgrounds.

We both grew up in lower middle class families in Minnesota: Rita in a large city, Joel in a small town. We both were raised by good, loving parents. For each of us, our parents were married for over 50 years. Joel is the second oldest of six children (four girls); Rita is the youngest of three girls. Joel attended public school; Rita attended Catholic school.

We graduated together from the University of Minnesota, College of Pharmacy. We lived in Madison, Wisconsin, for a few years where Joel received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Biochemistry while Rita worked as a pharmacist. After Joel finished his education, we moved to South Dakota where Joel worked for about 30 years at South Dakota State University, College of Pharmacy, retiring as assistant dean.

Rita worked part time as a pharmacist for the first couple years in Brookings before deciding to stay home to raise our three children. She became a volunteer lobbyist for South Dakota Eagle Forum, the state affiliate of the national organization that lobbies for pro-life, pro-family issues. Rita lobbied daily during the 40-day legislative session for 25 years, promoting those important family issues. All three of our children graduated from South Dakota State University. We now have six grandchildren.

For approximately six years while our children were in their grade school years, we taught children’s Sunday school (we called it children’s church) at our local non-denominational church. We didn’t follow a prescribed curriculum during those years. We relied on God to help us develop our own lessons each week, based on scripture verses selected during our personal Bible reading or as a result of experiences with our children during the week. We put those Bible lessons into practice while raising our children.

During the more than 35 years we’ve lived in Brookings, we have been blessed with great pastors, all of whom used the Bible as the foundation for their ministry. Also during those years we traveled coast to coast, boarder to boarder on various family vacations and business trips. During those travels we heard teaching and preaching of God’s word from many pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. More recently we have spent much of our travel time visiting our children and grandchildren and consequently heard instructive and inspirational Bible-based messages from their pastors as well.

Your background

Regardless of your background, for this book to be of benefit to you, you must be willing to consider that there is a spirit realm, that God is good, kind, and loving, that God does have an impact on your life, and that real miracles happen every day. In addition, you must be willing to consider the Bible as the source of truth; we use the Bible to establish whether a concept is true or not. A spiritual truth does not change; it can’t be true 100 years ago but not true today. By using the Bible as our compass we know we will stay on the right course. If you don’t believe these things, read on anyway because you may change your mind.

Everyday miracles

This book explains how you can change the way you resolve problems, obtain advice for decisions, and garner favor from others. Your situations could be regarding relationships, job and career opportunities, financial issues, health problems, interactions with strangers, or any of the countless and seemingly minor problems you face every day. When God intervenes to any extent, the solutions to these problems become everyday miracles.

Everyday people

This book focuses on everyday issues encountered by everyday people like us and like you. There is no elite group of special people who are given the privilege to hear from God. Everyday people includes everyone, not just those who have a specific ministry in which they routinely attend to the spiritual needs of other people or regularly prepare for teaching or preaching of the Gospel. Everyday people are ordinary people who have jobs, families, friends, and relationships, but also could benefit from some extraordinary help to make their daily lives even better. God, as our heavenly Father, wants to communicate with everyday people and help them daily. He wants a relationship with them.

It makes sense

Even though our academic backgrounds were science-based, the message of the Gospel and the other principles in the Word of God made logical sense as well as spiritual sense to us. We reiterate the logical conclusions based on scriptural evidence several places in this book. As everyday people, we are extremely grateful we have a heavenly Father who wants to communicate with us directly, helping us with our everyday problems. He has provided us with everyday miracles, and He will do it for you too.

Isn’t it about time for your everyday miracles to begin?

Chapter One

Everyday Miracles, What Are They?

What is a miracle anyway? Does it need to be the Red Sea parting, or a crippled hand instantly being healed, or an angel appearing with a message? Or, is it a car narrowly missing you in the intersection as it runs a red light? Is it a novel idea that all of a sudden hits you and provides an answer to a problem you are having in your backyard? Is it words of kindness that you feel inspired to say to someone in their time of need? Is it a new job opportunity that opens for you at just the time you need it?

Moses parting the Red Sea: not an everyday miracle.

God’s intervention

A miracle is any intervention by God, regardless of how small or seemingly insignificant. If God intervenes, then something changes; either something happens that otherwise would not have occurred or something doesn’t happen that otherwise would. Isn’t that a miracle, no matter how large or small the incident? The word miracle implies supernatural intervention, not merely a coincidence, but an intervention by God.

Most people only consider a miracle to be a huge, jaw-dropping event. An event that produces amazement or astonishment. But we should also be amazed at everyday miracles because they, too, reflect God’s love, grace, and power.

Everyday miracles get us through the day, make our lives better, or engulf us in joy, peace, patience, or comfort. Everyday also means these occurrences are frequent, not a once-in-a-lifetime miracle. They are inspiration, opportunity, protection, healing, endurance, insight, discernment, and wisdom. An everyday miracle is not just an incident that happens once in a lifetime, but routine occurrences throughout life: daily, weekly, or whenever the need arises.

Sometimes we need God’s help at the time we pray, but other times it is required later when the timing is right. For example, you may need help to solve an immediate problem, obtain protection during a week-long vacation, provide words of comfort for others, or receive favor from your boss when it comes time for promotion. Everyday miracles may be big or small in the scheme of our lives, but they are interventions by our heavenly Father.

Shoelace-type miracles

As a remembrance of God’s greatness, over the years we recorded some everyday miracles of how God has helped us. Regrettably, however, we did not record all of the countless everyday minor miracles that have indeed been a part of our everyday life. Minor isn’t really the best description because when God provides any assistance for which we ask, that is always major. It is like a daughter asking a parent to tie a shoelace; this is a relatively minor, everyday occurrence but yet helpful to the child who cannot do it on her own. It is not minor if the child falls on the cement