What makes a miracle?
A bus driver gets shot in the chest -- twice -- yet the bullets barely leave a scratch. Why? Because in his front chest pocket is a Bible.
Modern day miracle, or just a great bit of luck?
Whether you believe in miracles -- or the God behind them -- there’s no escaping the fact that a lot of people have their own miracle story to share.
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I know, because last year, after one little shout out on a radio station, I had 1,500 people write in and tell me about the times God stepped in and saved the day. And as I read through them all, a few things became clear.
Miracles are not reserved for the elite. I couldn’t find evidence of any kind of grading system that matches the strength of the miracle to the goodness of our souls. Believe me, some of the people that God helped out were major screw-ups. Miracles aren’t a reward for good behavior. In fact, I don’t even think they’re a reward at all.
But they’re not all equal. Some are jaw-on-the-floor big, with seemingly impossible events conspiring to bring about an inexplicable change of circumstance.
Like the time a three-year-old girl walks into a jewelry store with her father at the very moment that a robbery is about to turn into a murder scene. Guns racked, the thieves take one look at the girl, realized they’re in over their heads and flee, leaving their hostages unharmed.
Or the letter that makes it from Pennsylvania to Arizona in less than twelve hours, arriving in time to bring a healing smile to an old man’s face on his last night on earth.
I was young and foolish the day I went out hunting alone. I didn’t bother telling anyone that I was going to a lake I’d never visited before. But I know that holding the shotgun upside down, barrel pointed at my side, was about as dumb a thing as I had ever done.
Somehow the gun went off and I ended up with a hole the size of a small door knob punched through my side.
I fell to the ground, crawled out of the shallow water and laid there alone for hours, a thick fog descending as the sun set. Nobody came. I was alone. I was dying. Then God stepped in.
The chances of my wife and friends choosing the right lake, looking the right way as their headlights skimmed my car, that I could hear their calls and they could hear my faint replies were just too much.
The thick fog parting not once but twice for the helicopter to land. That I made it to hospital in time, was patched up and able to walk again, was more than good fortune. It was a God thing. It was a miracle.
I don’t know why miracles happen to some people and not others. I don’t know why some miracles result in life while others are found in death. But I do know that the thought of life without those divine interventions leaves me cold.
Miracles happen, every day. So when we hear about a bus driver who happened to put a Bible right in the place where a guy would later fire his gun, what are we going to do with that? Move on, brush it off as luck?
Look around you. There are a lot of “lucky” things happening. It’s like GK Chesterton said, “The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them.”
We have the evidence. Maybe now it’s time to change our doctrine.
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