When Miracles Occur

We are no longer a people who believe in miracles. Not in the way we usually think of them. Mary Doria Russell in her book Children of God has a miracle occur. That is all I will say so as not to ruin the story. The miracle is not of the Biblical type, but is one that could possibly catch the attention of our modern age.

But would it? Russell describes the reactions this way:

...[R]eaction to [the event] had rigidified. Believers found it a miraculous confirmation of God's existence and evidence of Divine Providence. Skeptics declared it a fraud - a clever trick...Atheists did not dispute [its] authenticity, but they considered it just another fluke that proved nothing - like the universe itself. Agnostics admitted [it] was magnificent, but suspended judgment, waiting for who knew what?

The pattern was established at Sinai and under the Buddha's tree; on Calvary and at Mecca; in sacred caves, at wells of life, amid circles of stone. Signs and wonders are always doubted, and perhaps they are meant to be. In the absence of certainty, faith is more than mere opinion; it is hope.

--Mary Doria Russell, Children of God, p. 430.

There will always be true believers, skeptics, and deniers. But so also will there always be signs and wonders. The believers will see them, the seekers will look for them, the skeptics will question them, the deniers will say they didn't happen. It may very well be that miracles are only seen by those who have the eyes of faith. That doesn't mean that we see what we want to see. No, many times I have been surprised by what has happened and what I have seen. That's why it is a miracle.

But I was open for the possibility. I was ready in hope that somehow God will break through and remind me that God is God and I am not. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that these miracles are happening around me all the time and I am too busy to see them.