Not Everything is a Miracle

Last week, the pastor at my church delivered a sermon basically saying that we shouldn't spend too much energy focusing on and looking for God's miracles.  His point was that what happens is that you basically get ADD in your relationship with God.  If you go too long without experiencing a miracle, you get distracted and/or frustrated with God, and your long-term relationship with God suffers as a result.

I'd like to go a step further, and posit that people see miracles where no miracle exists.  By definition, a miracle cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws.  This means that the overwhelming majority of events that people call "miraculous" are nothing of the sort.  I'll use my pastor as an example (though he probably won't like it).

We are in the process of moving to a new location.  The first step was to acquire property, which was a difficult, painstaking process.  The pastor, board and large part of the congregation had their heart set on a specific parcel, but it just wasn't meant to be.  Shortly after accepting that the first choice wasn't going to happen, another plot of land became available.  The church ended up acquiring this property, which was in a better location, more land and a better price.  My pastor has repeatedly called this a miracle.  My pastor, however, is wrong.

Again, I am going to refer to my previous statement that a miracle cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws.  Everything that happened in the land purchase was within the realm of natural law.  In fact, this kind of thing happens all the time in real estate.  Assuming that God was involved in this land purchase, it does not qualify as a miracle.  The correct term for this example is providence.  Providence is divine involvement that falls within the boundaries of science or nature.  Far too many people use the terms interchangeably.  The problem is, this cheapens actual miracles, and, quite frankly, makes people who use the term "miracle" too freely look a little nutty.

My personal opinion is that, while God loves us, he does not perform genuinely miracles very frequently.  In fact, I tend to think that most incidents of "providence" are probably just coincidences.  I believe that God loves us, and watches us, but it's precisely because of this love that he keeps his hands off, allowing nature -- the nature He created -- take his course.  I suspect that he subtly intervenes occasionally (providence) and on the rare occasion performs genuine miracles.

This doesn't diminish the thankfulness that we should feel and express toward God.  While God doesn't necessarily intervene as frequently as we would like, and as frequently as we give Him credit, that shouldn't impact our thankfulness.  After all, He created this wonderful world, where we can forge loving relationships, and experience all that life has to offer.  If God never performs a miracle in our lifetime, that doesn't mean He doesn't love us.  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be thankful for what we have.

We shouldn't spend so much time proclaiming miracles.  We shouldn't spend so much energy looking for miracles.  We should, however, continue to be thankful for the bounty that we have received.