I came on this Race expecting to see God move in these huge, miraculous ways. I wanted to see the dead rise up, their hearts once again pumping blood through their veins. I wanted to see the blind eyes widen in wonder at the sights now being seen- how green the trees really are, how blue the sky, the beauty in seeing the face that has only been felt until now. I wanted to see God “do His thing”.
And I haven’t seen those things. I haven’t seen cataracts fall off of an old man’s eyes or a crippled little boy unfurl in his mother’s loving arms, his legs stretching out for the first time since his birth.
Yet, I’ve realized that not having seen these things doesn’t mean that I still haven’t experienced miracles. God doesn’t always work in ways like that. The fruits of the Spirit are obvious: joy, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, peace. Seeing the Holy Spirit manifest itself in a person’s life, changing them to be more like Christ- have I really seen this as common, instead of the miracle it really is?
In a world of selfishness, is a Romanian family allowing 7 strangers to sleep in the one bedroom of their house not a miracle?
Is a tuk-tuk driver for six World Racers receiving $240, donated by strangers, to send his daughter to a Christian school any less of a miracle just because the money did not fall from the sky, or come from the pocket of a man who mysteriously appeared and then was never seen again?
Is a Cambodian woman- for seven years a gang member, thief, drunkard and coming from an all-Buddhist family- becoming a Christian and spreading the joy she has found to everyone she meets any less miraculous because no booming voice and blinding light was present when she found Jesus?
I’ve always loved the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Imagine all these people, who, in their excitement to go hear from this Rabbi, leave their houses, forgetting even to bring food. And Jesus, who cares so much about them, wanting them to not go hungry. “Feed them,” He tells His disciples. And so, after giving thanks, a little boy’s meager offering turns into enough food to feed thousands of people. It’s beautiful.
And yet, when I eat a sandwich, is it any less of a miracle? Yes, I bought that food with money from my own pocket, but take this sandwich- this package of meat and bread- and go back: To the person who transported it to the store. To the factory where it was made, the lives who work there, oversee the production. To the transporters from the farm to the factory. To the farmer who plants and grows the wheat, the oats; to the farmer who raises the pigs or chickens or turkeys. To the rain that nourishes the growing seedling, to the sun that beckons the seed from its dark hiding place, to the gravity that calls the roots down and the shoots up. The prayers that go up in all of this- that the dry spell be stopped, that there be just enough rain, that the frost not come this morning, that a tire not blow, that the sleepiness of the driver disappear. Dozens of lives have been involved with the food I’m eating. Employment, purpose, money, seasons of life and growth, God’s provision- all of this is encapsulated in a seemingly dinky sandwich sitting on the plate in front of me.
A woman in our English class in Cambodia invited us to her home for breakfast and lunch. While there, she told us of their financial hardships- both she and her husband are jobless, desperately searching for work so that they can continue to send their children to school and be able to feed them enough. She has so little, yet her faith and love of God had her inviting 6 Americans to her home and feeding them a LOT of food.
A little boy, overlooked by most because of his cleft palate and ability to express himself only by screaming the words his mouth can’t usually form, being loved on and encouraged and relentlessy pursued. (He was also taught by Dan how fun it is to be thrown up into the air- knowing that there will always be arms there to catch him on his way back down.) This little boy, learned that, though his earthly mother and father abandoned him, his Heavenly Father has not. Miracle?
A boy in the jail where Jodi taught English wrote her a good-bye note. In it, he told her, “You have been a savior to my loneliness.” Tell me that this supposedly “hardened criminal” finding out what love is, what the love of the Father is, is not a miracle. Maybe there was no blinding light, maybe no jail cells opened, but a heart did. To a soul so thirsty to know what love is, the quenching of a part of that thirst is a miracle that Jodi and the boy will remember always.
I remember once, in a beginning Audiology class, our professor telling us that the area of the brain where we process sound is situated very close to our brain’s “emotional center”. This is why Beethoven so easily makes us cry, why our moods can be echoed by the pounding of drums, the gentle lilt of a flute, the melancholic hope of a French horn, he told us. “Look at this!” he fairly cried out. “Remember this! No matter how much you study it, no matter how scientific you make hearing, it is never not a miracle.”
That’s how I want to see life. I want to see miracles in two cells growing and converging and forming a living, breathing, laughing human being; in the erratic flight of a butterfly; in the love of a husband holding his dying wife; in the compassion of those who have given up their cultures to go serve in an area desperate for Jesus and love; in those who are giving up weeks or months to go help victims of tragedies around the world; in the smiles of children; in the wonder that is all around us.
I never want to stop seeing it all as the miracle it really is.
It’s hard to read, but the quote says:
“There are two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
