Archive: The Great Miracle

By James S. Robb

Having trouble believing in miracles?

Here’s one that will give your faith a shot in the arm.

These are not easy days to be a Christian. The prevailing wisdom tells us Christianity is mostly nonsense. Although there are a great number of believers in the U.S., those who do not believe are less likely than ever before to agree with our basic world view. Thus, we Christians often feel like strangers in our own land.

Still, many (perhaps most) skeptics agree with Christians on two basic points. First, that there is a God (nine out of ten Americans accept this). And second, that God relates enough to humanity to hear and understand our prayers (a majority of Americans pray regularly).

After accepting these concepts, however, unbelievers may not agree with much else. The biggest sticking point is miracles. We moderns are scientific. Carl Sagan tells us the cosmos does not need God to create or sustain the world. Philosophers assure us the universe is a closed system, with outside intervention impossible or pointless. Thought leaders such as journalists and scholars will hardly bother to argue the point. Viewed through non-Christian eyes, miracles are definitely kaput.

This scorn is bad enough corning from outsiders, but hoards of ministers and seminary professors side with the doubters. Worse, they have imported secular skepticism right into the heart of the faith. We are told most ancient writers, including the Biblical ones, made up miracles to bolster their cases. Or that miracles such as the resurrection of Christ were never meant to be taken literally. Rather, they are beautiful, though fictitious, symbols of God’s love.

No one should underestimate the destructive power this doubt has had upon the Christian faith in our time. The difference between Moses parting the Red Sea and merely leading his followers over a shallow marsh is staggering. For many Christians the question is no longer whether a single miracle did or did not occur, but whether miracles can occur.

Such loss of faith has built the liberal wing of Christianity. For liberalism is, at root, little more than an attempt to form a faith which needs no supernatural intervention—miracles. Not surprisingly, liberal Christianity is in serious decline. What young person would be attracted to a faith which teaches that its holy book is unreliable and that its deity is no more powerful than the people in the pew?

What does all this have to do with evangelical believers, you might ask? We certainly affirm that God can perform miracles and that He does so with some regularity.

Yet, we are creatures of our time. We have no automatic immunity to modern thinking. Moreover, a little incredulity is a good thing. When someone tells us God “healed” their automobile (i.e., a minor problem cleared up), we often have mental reservations. But healthy questioning can drift to serious doubt. We are not above looking for a natural explanation for miracles described in the Bible. (Was Jesus the first hypnotist, healing with the power of suggestion?) Sometimes in our insecurity we even wonder, Could the liberals be partly right?

This creeping agnosticism can make life very unpleasant. Reading the Bible can lose its relish (who knows what really happened?). Praying can become torture (for God to do anything would require a miracle). More than any of this, how can you worship Jesus when you are unsure He ever left the tomb? Without miracles, our faith cannot stand.

Is help available, other than pious injunctions to try harder and be stronger? I think so.

Doubt about the reality of miracles has been an unwanted part of my Christian life. For several years, therefore, I have been looking for proof that miracles really happen. I decided if I could ever find a miracle which could not be mistaken for anything else, it would solve my dilemma. I would then know that miracles occur because I would have found one.

Recently I found it, and it was right under my nose. I discovered not just an authentic miracle, but what I now call The Great Miracle.

Think back to what I said nearly every American can affirm. Namely, that there is a God and that He hears our prayers. Christians of every theological stripe (and even many nonbelievers) accept this.

If you are among them, do you know what you’ve assented to? You have just affirmed your faith in The Great Miracle. Let me explain.

There are five billion human beings living on our planet. More than a billion of these claim to be Christians. Perhaps 500 million of these actually practice their faith. This means they pray.

Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that at least 500 million Christian prayers are said each day? Maybe you’re picky as to what kind of prayer God will hear. Cut the number down to 100 million if you wish.

All right. You’ve already conceded the key points. God exists. He hears our prayers. So refer to the little drawing I have made and figure out how God is supposed to hear and assimilate 100 million conversations a day. That’s 4 million an hour, 70,000 a second!

The ability to hear 4 million prayers every hour impressed me a great deal more than feeding 5,000 men or giving sight to one malformed set of eyes. For me, The Great Miracle settles once and for all the question of Christ’s resurrection. If God has the desire and power to do the one, surely He is capable of doing the other.

The Bible doesn’t drag out the arithmetic of God hearing prayers the way I have, but Jesus did urge His disciples to pray. Paul recommended we “pray without ceasing”—need I explain the logistical complications for God in that? The news gets better. According to Jesus, God not only hears the 100 million prayers a day, He meticulously answers them.

Should any of this surprise us? Not really. There is nothing odd about a deity acting divine. The only strange thing I can discern is that so many of our contemporaries believe in God without granting Him any godly powers. Christianity, miracles and all, is either true or it is not. Halfway houses of partial belief make much less sense than either orthodox faith or atheism. Let’s be consistent. Since we are already convinced about God’s reality, miracles are a cake walk.

When people who affirm God but deny miracles challenge your faith, remember that it is they, not you, who are on shaky ground. You’re just giving God His due.

Cherish the Great Miracle as you talk to your Maker today. Remember that even as God bends His ear close to your lips, weighing each syllable, so He does also for countless others that very hour. It is with good reason we call Him the God of Miracles.