Miracles and Miracles
| TODAY: When asked why he was a man of hope, Cardinal Leo-Josef Suenens replied: "Because I believe that God is born anew each morning, because I believe that he is creating the world at this very moment. He did not create it at a distant and long-forgotten moment in time. It is happening now. We must therefore be ready to expect the unexpected from God. The ways of Providence are by nature surprising. We are not creatures of determinism. God is near us, unforeseeable and loving. I am a man of hope, not for human reasons nor from any natural optimism. But because I believe the Holy Spirit is at work in the church and in the world and even where His name remains unheard." |
Do you believe that miracles happen today? Are miracles something that only happen to others? Does it have to be something spectacular to be a miracle?
I was watching a re-run of the sitcom "Cheers" one late night, and it made me think about how I view miracles. In the episode, a man had gone into the bar Cheers, had a few drinks, and, in the course of the evening, decided against joining a religious order. The gang from Cheers felt like it was their fault, so they tried to talk him back into it. The gentleman said he needed a sign. If he put money into the old jukebox and a song played, it would mean he should join the order. Everyone knew it had been broken for a long time, but before they could talk him out of it, he put in money and by some miracle, it worked! Everyone was amazed and felt it was a miracle.
After the man left, Coach remarked that it was a good thing he had gotten the jukebox repaired the day before! Then everyone saw that there was a logical explanation. But they were confused by Coach's reaction. Since he knew it had been repaired, they wondered why he had thought it was a miracle. Coach said that the miracle was the fact that in all the weeks and months that it had been broken, he chose this particular time to have it fixed - right before the man would need for it to work. Coach was the only one to see the real miracle. It didn't have to be some mysterious supernatural event to qualify as a miracle.
As I thought about it, I know that way too often I think like most of the people at Cheers. I look for that logical explanation. I chalk it up to coincidence. I want to be more like Coach and see those miracles that happen on a daily basis. One Sunday when Jim Noland was preaching about saints, he said that we are all saints, but some just have a very small "s." Maybe that's how it is with miracles. There are those "wow" miracles that have the large capital "M." But more often there are those everyday miracles that most of us don't even see.
So for the coming year, I will resolve to be aware of and acknowledge those miracles, no matter how small the "m." They really do exist if we are just open to their possibility!
— Joyce Lynn
Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist