How to Recognize the Miracles God Is Working All around You
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By International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Crosswalk.com
"He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted." (Job 5:9)
A question has bothered many scholars for centuries: If everything is a miracle, why does God sometimes choose to perform obvious, show-stopping miracles?
He can perform miracles secretly, as He does daily. He can steer the course of the world in any direction He chooses, as He does at all times, without anyone knowing it. In theory, God could have brought the Israelites out of Egypt through seemingly natural means—a natural disaster that destroyed Egypt, or some other divinely contrived scenario.
Why did God choose to bring His children out with signs and miracles, wonders and marvels?
The answer is revealed by God Himself in the Exodus story. Scripture reads: “And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it” (Exodus 7:5). A few chapters later, we come across a similar statement. Regarding Pharaoh, God told Moses: “I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord” (Exodus 10:1-2).
God performs miracles so that all—even those who were not firsthand witnesses—would believe and know Him as the one true God of Israel. It’s also an underlying principle in the Christian Bible, where Jesus performed his first public miracle, changing water into wine, so that “his disciples believe in him” (John 2:11). Similarly, according to the Christian Bible, God enabled Paul and Barnabas to perform “signs and wonders” as confirmation of their message (Acts 14:3).
In both the Jewish and Christian traditions, God’s work is often accompanied by and accomplished through miracles. In the Exodus story, God wanted to demonstrate to the Egyptians, the Israelites, and ultimately to the whole world that He alone is God. Unlike the Egyptian pantheon, which included more than 2,000 deities, God’s miracles proved that there is only One who created the world and can do with it as He pleases.
Similarly, when Joshua began his conquest of the Holy Land, Jericho fell by supernatural means. After the Israelites circled the seemingly impenetrable walls of Jericho seven times, the walls came tumbling down. In contrast, it seemed that human effort secured victory in the battles.
Moses won while on his way to the Holy Land. While we know that God fought for the Israelites, He did so behind the scenes, where He would be unnoticed. We see this in the battle against the Amalekites in Exodus 17:8-16, when Moses stood atop the hill with only the “staff of God” in his hands. As long as Moses kept the staff raised, the Israelites prevailed. But when Moses’ hands grew tired and he lowered the staff, the Amalekites rallied. Finally, Aaron and Hur came alongside and held up Moses’ hands until the Israelites were victorious.
Undoubtedly, God was fighting on behalf of the Israelites, but His presence was not evident to those on the battlefield. When it came to that initial battle of conquering Canaan, however, God wanted His presence clearly known. He was making a statement: He, and He alone, had given the land to the Israelites, and no one could stand in their way.
It makes sense then that the Hebrew word for “miracle” is nes. Nes can also mean a “banner,” something with a message that is held up for all to see, a sign. When God performs a nes it is so that we might take note of His statements, His work, His power. Indeed, following that victorious battle against the Amalekites, Moses built an altar and called it “The Lord is my Banner” (Exodus 17:15).
This being the case, we must consider all the miracles we have received in our lives with this perspective. We must view miraculous world events, such as the founding of the state of Israel, the return of the Jewish people to their homeland, and the battles that were inexplicably won against all odds, as the nes of God.
We must ask ourselves, both in our personal lives and in the global arena, “What statement is God making now? What work is He trying to accomplish in my life?” If we are blessed to witness a miracle, it is our responsibility to see the message behind it and respond accordingly.
Recognizing God’s Wonders
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
(Psalm 136:3-4)
Albert Einstein once said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Einstein addressed a point that all believers can understand—if God is the source of everything, then what is the difference between the rising of the sun or the parting of the sea? Both are manifestations of the word of God; both are miracles. The difference? One happened one time, the other happens every day.
Every moment, every breath, and everything that happens every day is nothing less than miraculous. As the psalmist wrote, “Who can list the glorious miracles of the Lord? Who can ever praise him half enough?” (Psalm 106:2, NLT) In his book, Miracles: A Journalist Looks at Modern Day Experiences of God’s Power, Christian writer Tim Stafford wrote, “Everything that happens in creation is pregnant with the power and the presence of God. Nowhere you can go escapes him. Nothing that happens, happens apart from his will. Everything is natural and supernatural at the same time.”
If you believe, like I do, that miracles happen every day, we can differentiate between three types of miracles. First, there are those things that happen all the time. These are the events we call natural and attribute to nature. These include our ability to open our eyes and see, a baby being born, or the crops that grow after we plant seeds and water them. Although these wonders are divinely ordained, they are common and expected. Most of these events are taken for granted.
We read in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Again, in Psalm 97:6, the psalmist reminds us, “the heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory.”
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, declared that nature reveals the character of God to us. (See Romans 1:19-20.) God’s miraculous handiwork is evident for all to see—if only we would pay attention.
Some miracles are hidden. God does many extraordinary things for us daily, only we don’t know about them. The story of Balak, the Moabite king, and Balaam, the sorcerer, from Numbers 23 is a wonderful example of God’s hidden miracles. Balak wanted the Israelites destroyed and had hired Balaam to curse the nation of Israel. But each time Balaam opened his mouth to curse Israel, God intervened miraculously, and only blessings came out. Yet, the Israelites were completely unaware of both the danger they were in and of God’s miraculous salvation for them.
How many times a day does God save us from disaster or cause things to come together for the good? Unlike “nature,” these miracles are extraordinary, requiring divine intervention, but we do not see them as such. I recognize this in my daily prayers, in which I thank God “for Your miracles that are with us every day; and for your wonders and favors in every season—evening, morning, and afternoon.”
The third type of miracle is the type most people think of—the eye-opening, obvious, and wondrous. They range from the parting of the sea during the Exodus to Israel’s miraculous victory during the 1967 Six-Day War, to the many miracles that Jesus and the apostles performed in the Christian Bible. These miracles are what people refer to when someone survives what should have been a fatal disease or car crash or have experienced a sudden turn of fortune, what we call in Hebrew, nes nighleh (a blatant miracle).
Regardless of the type of miracle—natural, hidden, or revealed—our job as believers is to see all of God’s miracles in our lives. The more that we can see them, the more we will receive them.
Receiving Our Miracles
I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27)
People often wonder: “Where did all the miracles go? Are miracles still happening?”
We read in the Bible how God parted the sea for the Israelites, how He made the sun stand still for Joshua, how the manna rained down from the heavens, and so many more miracles unlike anything we experience today. Many folks are not even asking for a miracle of biblical proportions—just a miracle that would allow a loved one to be healed or put food on the table. If nothing is too hard for God, how can we receive the miracles we are looking for?
First, we must understand that there is no magic formula; God is not the proverbial genie in a bottle. In addition, we must keep in mind that as difficult as it is for us to understand, what we think we need might not really be the thing we need right now. And the opposite could be equally true. What we are sure is a curse could very well end up being our greatest blessing. We must approach our requests for miracles with humility.
That said, the answer is yes, we can be a part of our own miracle-making, but it often starts with faith. We see this repeatedly throughout the Bible. As Joshua was about to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, they stood on the banks of the flood-ravaged Jordan River. Yet in faith, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant obediently walked into the river as God had commanded Joshua. The Bible records, “as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water upstream stopped flowing… all of Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground” (Joshua 3:15-17).
Faith can bring about miracles. We see this in the Christian Bible as well. For example, when Jesus healed the woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years and who had reached out to touch the tzitzit (fringe) of his prayer shawl, he said to her: “Take heart, daughter… your faith has healed you.” (See also Matthew 8:13 and 9:29; Mark 10:52; Luke 17:19 and 18:42 for other examples.)
Our donors are a testament to faith-producing miracles. Consider the story of Mike and Kenna, a couple who for years lived paycheck to paycheck from the meager profits of their furniture store. One night, they came across The Fellowship on TV, asking Christians to help bring Jewish exiles home to Israel. They immediately acted on faith and began giving enough to send one Jew home per month. That lasted for about a year, when their finances took a downturn. As Kenna recalls, “I prayed, ‘Lord, why have we been allowed to look like the tail when your Word says we are the head? We are your children. I have faith that your Word will manifest in our lives, because your Word never fails.’”
The next day, a woman walked into their store and ordered enough furniture for 18 condominiums in Florida. Her one order far exceeded what their showroom could even hold. From that one sale, their previous goal of sending one Jew home per month turned into helping 20 needy Jews come home to Israel in a single month.
I pray that we will have the faith to help bring about the miracles we are looking for in our lives. And that when we do receive our miracles, we remember it is our sacred duty to share God’s wonders with the world.
As we read in Psalm 9:1, “I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”
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Photo credit: ©InternationalFellowshipofChristiansandJews, IFCJ
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is the leading non-profit building bridges between Christians and Jews, blessing Israel and the Jewish people around the world with humanitarian care and lifesaving aid.
