Have We Stopped Believing in Miracles? (And How to Believe Again)

A pile of gray fur lay tucked in our blackberry bushes. We knew what had happened, simply by circumstantial evidence.

The night before, a coyote was pacing our property. Our neighbor said her cat was mangled, scraped and scarred, but when she came outside at the sound of it all, the coyote ran off.

Her cat survived. Ours wasn’t so lucky.

The funeral of my father is fresh on my mind. Although the days between lamenting at his graveside, are dwindling with time.

A friend from school had her brother and father die, in less than a week.

What is going on? Why does tragedy seem to be hitting? Should we just stop believing in miracles?

Has God left his people? Has God run and hid? Is He angry at His children?

My daughter’s close friend just passed recently, from complication from epilepsy. She was eighteen. (Read more and won’t you consider helping her family here)

And while the dome of darkness seems to be encasing, the let loose of evil seems to be plaguing, when dozens of churches are found burning like a flame, begging to be seen…

Are we asking, where is God? Is He faithful? Can we believe in Him still, for miracles?

A light hovers across the dark earth. It moves and turns like an Eagle shining inside the night. As it rides, a breath, a whisp, everything below springs up and bursts forth to life…

Like plants blooming from the cracked earth, once dry and barren.

I open Isaiah 45 “Fall in showers, you heavens from above and let the skies rain down righteousness [the pure spiritual heaven born possibilites] that have their foundation in the holy being of God]...

It goes on, “Let the earth open and let them [skies and earth] SPROUT FORTH SALVATION”

“And let righteousness germinate and spring up [as plants do] together.”

And I get it. There is no life apart from Him. “I am the way, the truth and THE LIFE”, He tells us in John 14:6.

Every place apart from Him is barren.

There are no miracles that can be experienced outside of the goodness of God.

Two giggling Preschoolers climb into my bed in the early morning, careless to the world’s problems, to all the death that has surrounded us. They are simple, innocent. They laugh and play like baby cubs just happy to be with their parents.

They know they have a dad who loves them. And they trust him for everything; food, shelter, and every basic need.

And yet, we question the goodness of God, because the enemy has seemed to ravish our land? The world tilts. Everything is shaken. Is it revealing what we are actually made of?

Hearts have grown cynical and hard. The world is offended. (Matt. 8:7) Love has grow cold (Matt. 24:12), just like Scripture taught us would happen as the night drew nearer.

However, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and LEAP FOR JOY, for behold, your reward is great in heaven…” (Luke 6:22-23)

Maybe the scoffing is a blessing and the sifting a gift God has given you and me.

Maybe the shaking and testing, the taking and the loosing is a blessing God uses to expose our hearts? And…

Within the confines of a pure heart, miracles are unstoppable.

Will we believe? Will we trust, He is doing this all for our good? Like a father who trains us? A coach who expends us? A shepherd who hooks us and doesn’t let us go because He knows there are thorn bushes waiting to ensnare us?

I want to believe again, don’t you?

I want to run with a fervent faith that is not quenched or tainted by the lies; God is not good, the world is all doomed, and satan has more power than Jesus.

Why is darkness louder than those of us who have known the miracle-working power of God?

Where are our voices? Why have our eyes been covered in mud? Sitting, begging for hope? Yet, when He asks us in faith, will we say, we need a miracle?

Will we demand from God some kind of formula? Some kind of 1 + 1 kind of faith, that insists God works in only one way?

Will we limit him in our self-righteousnes? Doubt Him in our small mindedness?

Will we miss the miracle because we are looking for a mathmatical equation instead?

I woke and had breath today. Children laughed. My house is safe. And the God who took my mess twenty years ago, has resurrected something beautiful that only exists because of Him.

My body is strong, and that is a miracle!

My father went into remission for seven weeks. That was a miracle.

The world spins and there are still people who buy coffee of the person behind them, open doors for other people, or smile at strangers despite their world is crumbling around them.

Miracles exist in the lives of everyone around us. Do we see them? Will we share them…

Will we be one to someone else in need?

And perhaps, miracles aren’t seen, because we don’t have eyes to see them. 

Are we blinded to our own blindedness and colored by a hue of doubt that has convinced us the world is bad, we are helpless, and God today fails to perform miracles?

Perhaps, we don’t see miracles, because we have not tracked his goodness through journals, self-reflection, or acknowledging how He has sustained us, so many times, when we haven’t deserved it.

Do we accept a glass half full? Love the certainty of knowing the hollow hole of lack, versus the disappointment of believing for something that feels impossible?

So, we pray small prayers. Ask for petty things, like “a good day” or for God to “keep us safe”.

Yet, the saints in the book of Acts, asked for greater boldness, boldness to preach the word.

C.S. Lewis shares, “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”

Won’t we ask for eyes to see? Pray for vision to believe what He is done and what He is still doing? Won’t we count it all joy, even amidst our suffering?

Will we look back and retell the stories of His deliverance? Share the miracle of each moment? Look through the filters of His lenses that every single day is a miracle…

The gift of salvation, the greatest miracle of all.

God still does miracles! He still heals the sick, helps the hurting, redeems the broken! 

Faith is a gift from God, and if we want more, all we have to do is ask for it.

Let’s humble ourselves, recognize our lack, and raise our voices to the God of all Hope, who still today, doesn’t fail to do the impossible.

God still does miracles.

Let’s bow our heads, lift our heads and shout to this desperate world, “We believe”!