You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.
With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. (Psalms 77:14, 15) (NIV)
“If you only look for the Holy Spirit in the supernatural, you’ll miss ninety percent of what he’s doing,” my mentor said. His wisdom came from serving as a missionary in Africa for fifty years.
I used to think that a miracle, if I ever saw one, would be accompanied by heavenly sparks and angelic choirs. I didn’t think I would ever see one. Then one day I did.
I drove my children to an appointment and the slip of paper with the address went missing. We pulled to the roadside and searched everywhere, even under the floor mats. My eight-year-old daughter wanted to pray, so we closed our eyes.
“Jesus, please help us find the note so we’re not late.”
We opened our eyes, and the paper lay at her feet. No psychedelic colors or singing, just the paper. We drove on like nothing unusual happened.
I’ve begun to recognize that God can and does work with dramatics, but his favorite medium is to integrate into the common—a sacrificial ram caught in the thicket for Abraham, a soggy fleece to give Gideon courage, the King of the Universe born in a sheep manger. These events teach us to expect God’s intervention in any circumstance.
In Africa we asked for a miracle of the first order, so the churches would come together to launch revival. We organized prayer and put up posters. There were no angelic invasions or tongues of fire, but people filed in until the largest meeting ever held in the history of Doma, Zimbabwe was for the purpose of lifting up Jesus Christ.
Miracles are common in the common.
Prayer: Lord, bring your power into every corner of my average life.