Every other day, I essentially intern at my church during my fourth block at my school. Usually, my job consists of helping out at the middle school service on Sunday, planning videos to hype up the mission trips this summer, or meeting with our lead pastor to ask him questions about basically anything in the Bible. Me and 7 other “mentees” began studying the book of Colossians, and we got a little bit off track yesterday and started to talk about exactly why people doubted Jesus was actually God. Even with tangible proof today that some guy named Jesus definitely walked the earth, some people can’t get behind that God, the creator of the entire universe, would come to earth as a human. We can all agree that Jesus was a good guy. But the miracles he performed? Why doesn’t God perform miracles like that today? I don’t see guys walking on water. I don’t see people being raised from the dead. I don’t see paralytics being cured, or water being turned into wine, or five thousand people being fed by a few loaves of bread and some fish. They’re all just stories. Right?
My internal monologue was telling me to be rational. Seeing is believing, Maddie. I fell into a trap by believing that miracles were something only performed when Jesus physically walked the earth. I know I don’t deserve miracles, so why could I expect them to show up in my life? I decided to start actually paying attention to the world around me. In the little stuff. I was so blinded by my own doubts surrounding miracles that I was missing the small miracles in my own life. Perhaps I labeled them as coincidences. A bout of good luck. I think the word “miracle” has a type of connotation around it – that it has to be something grandiose, like a front page headline. With that in mind, I think that I’ve overlooked little miracles in my life because I don’t think it’s even important enough to be considered a miracle.
How many times have I misplaced something, causing me to leave a few minutes later, and narrowly missed a car accident? Or, on a less serious note, how many times have I prayed over something small and just wrote His “yes” off as a coincidence? Literally yesterday I was at work, praying for a snow day because I was too exhausted to run in a track meet the next day. Today? I got to sleep in until 10. Regardless of how relatively insignificant that was in the course of my life, waking up to a blanket of snow was a little reminder for me to thank Him. A month ago I was writing up some support letters and some random names popped into my head and I decided to send them letters and their willingness to support me was overwhelming. I used to write that off as a coincidence.
Paying more attention to the little things around me have helped me become more aware of His presence in my life. I can remember myself four years ago praying for what I have now. And, honestly, I can consider those prayers being answered a miracle. Miracles today definitely do happen – we just need to adjust our scale on what we consider them to be. People are cured of cancer. People fall in love with the stranger that sits next to them on the plane. People start their first day of their dream job. People follow what God put on their hearts. I found three dollars on the ground last week and had just enough cash to buy some coffee. It just took me until now to realize that.
