Seeing Miracles

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. - Luke 10:13-14

This week we’ve been looking at Luke 10 and thinking about how God speaks to us. There are half a dozen major avenues God uses; the two we’re looking at this week are when God speaks through people and in today’s devotion about when God speaks through miracles.

The single biggest point Jesus makes about God speaking through miracles isn’t to do some analysis on when they occur or how to verify them or even how to ‘get’ them. Rather, it’s how not to miss them. Can you see the distinction?

Over and over in the gospels, Jesus points out that miracles are happening all the time and we just need to have our eyes and ears open. In our passage today he points out how it’s so often the religious people who miss out on God because they discount miracles when they don’t fit into our neat little descriptions of how they are supposed to work. We want a specific answer to a specific prayer; so we can miss God when the answer comes in a different way. Or we expect God not to be able to work in the lives of ‘unbelievers’ when God is doing miracles in their lives all day long; so we can miss God’s work yet again.

Today, ask God to give you eyes to see the miracles and ears to hear them. Look for them in unlikely places, especially amongst the everyday moments of our lives, in the people who live on the margins of our world, and in your own heart.