A MILLION LITTLE MIRACLES

I have a friend who loves to read books. In fact, she and her adult son often share books with one another. It is their way of keeping connected and doing something together they both enjoy.

A couple of weeks ago, she loaned me “A Million Little Miracles” by Mark Batterson.

I am loving this book and barely finished the first page before ordering my own. I figure she didn’t want me writing all over her book. I just can’t help it!!! Journaling my thoughts and interacting with the author is a habit I developed in college. Writing down my thoughts helps me process ideas and nails fleeting thoughts to paper.

So, what are these “little miracles”??

Well, you know…the million little things that happen every day that we barely take note of.

Did you realize that even on a day that you don’t get much done, you traveled 1.6 million miles through space? Yep, that’s true and that’s not all. Did you know that our Milky Way galaxy is spinning at 468,000 miles per hour? Think about, we didn’t even get dizzy.

When was the last time you thanked God for keeping you in orbit?

Did you kneel at the end of the day and pray, “Lord, I wasn’t sure we were going to make the full rotation today, but You did it again!!”

When it comes to miracles, it is easy to look for exceptions to the rule? This is fine and dandy and we should praise God for anomalies and epiphanies. But this book is about praising God for everything else.

He challenges his readers to “scope” out God’s greatness in the everyday stuff of life!!

How about beginning with a telescope? Try viewing the photos brought back by the James Webb. It will blow your mind. Not only does God keep our planet orbiting the sun without any strings attached, He has also developed fully mature galaxies that are billions of light years away that we are just now able to see.

What do these galaxies tell us of our God? Why are they there?

Last week, I took a quick look through the book of Job. I find it so interesting that God never answers Job’s questions. Why did Job suffer? Why did things happen to him the way they did? God simply asks him if he understands how the universe works and challenges Job to answer His questions.

God hands Job a telescope and asks him to look at what He has made, and says, “Go ahead, Job, and answer Me.”

Were you there when the foundations of the earth were laid? Or when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy? Have you ever commanded the morning and caused the stars to know their place?

Do you know the expanse of the earth? Tell Me, Job, if you know it all.  

Do you know the way of the thunderbolt? Can you bring rain upon the earth? Do you provide the hunt for the lions or nourishment for the ravens, when its young cries for food? Do you give the horse its might? Do you cloth his neck with a mane? Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and stretches his wings? Is it by your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high?

Well, Job. Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?  Tell Me, if you know it all.

Then Job answers the LORD, and says, I know You can do all things. And no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. I have spoken of things I do not understand. If I do not understand earthly things, how can I understand Your thoughts and Your ways?

“LORD, now I am asking You. Please speak and instruct me.”

The book of Job provides a powerful insight into the heart of God. God hears Job’s questions but allows them to simmer. Then He steps in and reminds Job of WHO He is and WHAT He has done.

If these earthly things are beyond Job’s understanding, then so are the ways of God!! Like Job, we must trust God with what we do not understand.

Job’s sufferings and questions are not all there is to the story. The story ends with God’s blessings!! God restored all the fortunes of Job, and the LORD blessed his latter days more than his beginnings.

So, here’s a thought for this week. Grab a telescope, a microscope or a stethoscope and scope out God and develop a holy curiosity. Why? Because everyone has problems. Health problems. Money problems. Relationship problems and whatever.

The smaller our God, the bigger our problems. The bigger our God, the smaller our problems!!

“It’s time to rediscover the God who is bigger than your biggest problem, bigger than your biggest mistake and bigger than your biggest dream,” says Batterson.

“God is always writing a bigger story.”