I’ve been thinking about the ways God works in my life and throughout the world. In this, I see three distinct types of miracles.
I think we dismiss the existence of miracles and see most if not everything as natural. I know people who believe in God but do not believe in miracles. For some religions, this is part of their beliefs. They don’t believe in a God that acts in the world.
Others have been Christian. This confuses me. How can a person be a Christian, believing that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son into the world to save us, and not believe that God still acts in the world? For me, the supernatural work of God in the world is an obvious and necessary reality that flows from Who God is.
Despite this certainty of God’s actions in the world, I rarely consider His miraculous work. This is a failing on my part. There are miracles happening all around us, but we rarely recognize them.
An important first step is to consider what a miracle is. For the purposes of this article, we are going to consider a miracle some work by God. This is by definition supernatural, since God is not a part of the natural world. His actions are from outside of nature. They are supernatural.
Another aspect of a miracle to consider is the purpose. God does not act arbitrarily. We can’t see all of God’s plan, so there are many things in the world that may seem to be random, chaotic or arbitrary. This is a mistake.
All of God’s work is to give glory to God. That may seem self-serving, but it isn’t. God is perfectly and infinitely loving and merciful. The way He reveals His glory is through the love and mercy He extends to us. His miracles are specific actions on His part to extend His love and mercy to us.
Miracles: Supernatural Actions that Relieve Suffering
The first type of miracle we are going to look at is the type that we most commonly think of when we consider miracles, a supernatural action by God that helps us by relieving some suffering.
A simple example of this would be a person being cured of cancer in a supernatural manner.
God certainly acts in this way, but these miracles tend to be fairly rare. Why is that? God is all powerful. He could cure everyone of every illness right now.
The answer to why God allows suffering is a complex one, and yet the answer is also very simple. God uses suffering to achieve some greater good. Now, an exploration of the reasons for suffering, how God uses it and all the other aspects of suffering are far beyond the scope of this article.
Instead, we are going to look at the times when God has allowed some suffering to begin, and then miraculously removes it. I suspect this happens far more than we realize. More often, we consider the resolution to be natural. We fail to credit God when He acts.
Some miracles are so spectacular that we cannot ignore them. Jesus rising from the dead changed His followers and ultimately changed the world. I’ve been able to witness a few miracles, not on that scale, but still incredibly powerful. I wasn’t alone, and yet the others that witnessed the same miracles have forgotten how amazing they were.
We need to work to remember and thank God when He acts in this way.
Miracles: Giving Strength to Overcome Trials
Our lives are full of trials and difficulty. There is a common belief today that we should be happy all the time. Many people live with a feeling of entitlement to happiness and comfort. That is a fantasy.
The world is full of trials. Everyone experiences them. Most of us are very good at hiding our suffering and brokenness, but it is there. Anxiety, depression, loneliness, physical pain, sorrow, hopelessness, and despair are rampant in our society. Everyone is either suffering from one or more of these now, or they were suffering in the past, or they will be in the future.
When we experience these, we often pray for God to remove them, to cure us of the suffering. That would be the first type of miracle. Instead, God has another option.
More often, God will give us grace to endure the trial. We might need hope, courage, fortitude, faith, love or another virtue. Often, we need several virtues to endure.
Have you ever seen a person afflicted with a horrible disease that causes extreme pain and the loss of ability to do things that we take for granted, but that person seems to have courage and joy that is far greater than most people?
This is certainly a testament to the virtue of the individual, but we have to also recognize that God’s grace is the power behind that virtue. Without God’s help, we wouldn’t be able to endure much of anything.
Our daily lives experience this grace constantly. This is a supernatural gift from God to aid us during our difficulties.
There are three reasons God does this that immediately come to mind when consider this type of miracle. First, God is helping us develop virtues. Second, God is helping us to remember to rely on Him. Third, God is making us an example of His grace.
When we encounter suffering and trials, our prayer should include a prayer for the strength and virtue to accept and endure the trial well.
Miracles: Trials to Develop Virtue
How do we grow in virtue? St. Paul describes the spiritual life as a race to be run. This image compares our spiritual development to a competition. We aren’t competing with each other but with ourselves. We are competing with our tendency to choose poorly.
I love the passage from Deuteronomy 30 on the choice of life and death. It begins with this:
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.
The choice is clear, follow God and receive life, prosperity and other blessings, or choose to reject God and receive death and adversity. The choice is really simple.
Despite this, we tend towards being knuckleheads and choose poorly. What more do we need than this simple passage to outline what we should do. Because of our obstinance and propensity to choose things that harm us, God continues:
Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
God gives us the easiest decision that could possibly be put before us, and still has to tell us how to choose. Even with this knowledge, the people that received this message directly often chose poorly, and we continue this today.
So, we’re knuckleheads, and please do not think that I exclude myself from this. I have chosen the wrong path many times.
With a hardheaded, obstinate, prideful people, how can God get us to turn back to Him?
Offering eternal life filled with more joy than we can imagine should be enough, but God knows that we need more. We need to see how lost we are without God.
This brings the third type of miracles, trials to lead us to virtue and eternal life. God does not cause us to suffer, but there are times He allows suffering so that some good might come of it. That can include trials in our lives.
If we are prideful, then some humiliation may be the best way to turn us from that pride. If we need to develop patience, then we likely need to practice enduring times of frustration. If we are short on courage, then some challenge that requires courage that we must pass through is the cure.
Every vice can be countered with by practicing a virtue in a time of trial. Although these trials are the cure, that doesn’t mean they are fun. On the contrary, they are hard and at times painful. It is pushing through that struggle and pain that helps us grow and develop.
Very few people see the trials of this life as miraculous gifts from God. That stems from the typical narrow definition of miracles. When we consider that God acts supernaturally to helps us grow in holiness and reach eternal life with Him, it should be obvious that His miracles are widespread. Many don’t look like what we expect.
If you want to be a champion in a sport, you must commit to years of hard work, sacrifice, suffering, trials and practice to develop skills and overcome your weaknesses. There is no championship greater than achieving eternal life with God, so the work for such a reward should be grueling and difficult.
As we look at these three types, the frequency and reason we encounter them should become clear.
The trials that help us develop virtue and conform ourselves to God are widespread, but often ignored as miracles to help us. The grace given to strengthen us and perfect us appears to be less common, but easier to recognize as a gift from God. Finally, the times when God does something spectacular to remove a trial are even less common, but these are the easiest to recognize. They are likely used by God to remind us He is at work and to instill hope in many people.
Giving Thanks
We should give thanks for the work of God and all His miracles. We should give thanks for our trials and hardships for how they give us the opportunity to practice virtue. We should give thanks for the grace to grow in virtue and persevere in hard times. And we should give thanks for the end of the trials and joy that follows.
Blessed be the Name of the Lord and Blessed be all His works.