Miracles and the Wonderous

Miracles

What defines a miracle? Are miracles every day occurances or something that only happens to the spiritually elite? The Lucky? The seeking?

I am learning to find miracles in every day little things to the largest things in life.

I am blown away that Airbus A340 accident on August 3rd 2005 at Lester B. Pearson Toronto airport did not claim any lives. As AOL.CA reported:

Air France said 22 people were injured, while Toronto airport officials said 43 were hurt. The wreckage of the jetliner smoldered Wednesday near a busy highway in what a Paris newspaper called ''The miracle of the Air France Airbus.''

At Air France headquarters in Roissy, France, airline chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta praised the crew.

''I don't know if we should speak of a miracle ... but above all the professionalism of the crew,'' Spinetta said Wednesday.

Whatever Spinetta believes, yes this was a miracle on a grand scale. The chances of anyone escaping a fiery plane crash are usually slim to none.

What makes us believe that miracles don't happen?

Lack of faith that someone other than ourselves intervened on our behalf? Refusal to believe in the supernatural? Failure to acknowledge the miraculous?

What constitutes a miracle?

I submit that a miracle is anything that we as humans could not control, predict for, manipulate, or create. A miracle is something we know deep down inside could not of been swayed one way or the other by human intervention.

It is a brush with a purpose and design far above our mortalism.

It is a brush with God.

From the airbus A340 to the stars flung into the sky, to the miracle of conception, to the miracle of daily life, waking up every day still breathing, we are all touched by the miraculous every day.

God says that life is a miracle. We were knit in our mother's womb by His hands, He knows every hair on our heads, we can hardly state that. He calls every star by name. Did you ever try to count the stars? Try. When you lose track of where you started, and you will, remember he calls each by name and keeps track of every single one. Even NASA cannot even boast of that one accomplishment.

Every day we will be impacted by the miraculous if we will peer through the eyes of wonder and faith.

Max Lucado is a favorite author of mine and he said something that really impacted me to this day (my paraphrase)

A miracle is about to happen. As you hit your alarm clock and stagger into your bathroom to meet the day a miracle is about to happen. As you stand and your eyes begin to focus on the unshaven unkempt visage before you a hallelujah chorus has just been intiated, angels are singing and rejoicing and God is pleased. His image stares back at you through the mirror and He says of you "This is my son with whom I am well pleased! This is my child, my pride and joy and I am so very happy with how I created you!"

A miracle has just happened. Did you see it? His fingerprint just was visible. His creation, His idea, His miracle.

Every breath is a miracle from God. Every day we have to impact our world is a gift from the hand of God. How are we going to use that? How do we respond to something that wonderful?

Luke 11:33-35 says, “Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live in wide-eyed wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”

Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.”

If I were to ask if you’ve ever experienced a miracle I’m guessing that, depending on your definition, some of you would say “no.” I beg to differ.

By the time you finish reading this you will have inhaled and exhaled approximately 250 times. And most of you won’t give it a second thought, but I want you to stop and consider the journey of an oxygen atom.

The journey begins when air passes through your nose where unwanted dust and debris is filtered out.

For what it’s worth, the average person moves about 440 cubic feet of air per day. Air travels through the trachea and into the lungs. The surface area of your lungs is forty times greater than the surface area of your body—compressed within the tiny space between your ribs. The oxygen atoms then hitchhike with hemoglobin and travel throughout the entire human body via blood vessels. If those blood vessels were laid end to end they would be approximately 100,000 miles long. The blood vessels in your body could wrap around the equator four times! At the end of the journey, oxygen enters individual cells, bonds with the food we eat and releases energy. Biologists call it cellular respiration.

In his article “The Miracle of Breath,” James Robinson writes, “Webster's Dictionary defines a miracle as ‘an extraordinary, unusual wonder or marvel.’ Isn't a bloodstream 100,000 miles long, in a small body, an unusual wonder? Isn't the journey of an oxygen atom a true marvel? We don’t need supernatural events to experience a miracle. All we need is breath. The human breath is Sacred. Cherish your breathing: it is the miraculous gift of life.”

Acts 17 says that God “gives all men life and breath.” Job 34 says that if God were to withdraw his breath we would return to dust.

The bottom line is this: every breath we take is miracle. The average person takes approximately 23,000 breaths per day. That means you owe God about 23,000 thank yous every day!

We are surrounded by miracles, but we have a choice to make. We can live as if nothing is a miracle. Or we can live as if everything is.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

Yes, God is a God of Miracles. Look for them through the eyes of your faith and you will find them.