So Dad (also known as Baba, when Miss Boo is in the conversation) and I were talking over Christmas about miracles, mostly in the context of Cinderella and Snow White.
(Amusing side note: for some unknown reason Miss Boo's cousin, who is 17 months old, calls Snow White "Whitey". {Obviously we do not call people "whitey."} Since she is possibly the most Caucasian baby I've ever seen, this is hilarious. Her mother's trying to get her to stop, though, much to the chagrin of those of us who don't have to deal with a child shouting "WHITEY!" in the grocery store when she sees Snow White cups.)
Anyhow, I was reading Miss Boo a Snow White/Cinderella book and I said, "What is it with all these girls marrying guys they met seven minutes ago? And Snow White's husband apparently goes around kissing girls he thinks are dead. That's not creepy or anything." To which Dad replied, "You weren't listening during the movies, were you? They're in love with the princes. It's a miracle." (Or something to that effect, Dad, I'm just reporting the basics of the conversation here.)
Which prompted me to say, among other things, that princesses falling in love with an unlikely person is NOT the definition of a miracle, which prompted Dad to say I should blog on miracles. (Very long intro done.)
Why did it bother me so much to define ill-advised marriage with a possible necrophiliac as a miracle? (Aside from the obvious?) Well, because we tend to define "miracle" much too loosely. Most of us in modern America define "miracle" as "an unlikely happy event that is nevertheless explainable through natural events". Not to pick on Dickens again, but "a Christmas miracle" might be "Scrooge, a habitually selfish person, becomes uncharacteristically generous on Christmas". I'm sure you'll agree that this is hardly in the same ballpark as "A Baby is conceived and born to a woman who is a virgin." A true miracle is impossible to explain within the confines of nature. In order to explain it, you have to say "God did it."
Scrooge's conversion, while unlikely, is perfectly possible and not even particularly difficult to explain. People who've had very scary experiences (like a dream where someone kicks you into your grave for refusing to eat turkey with your nephew) will sometimes change their habits. But babies just don't do these things; except for the Incarnation, we have no other experience with a baby being born without any fatherly DNA. We have to say, "God did that." In fact, that was Mary's entire explanation of her glorious problem-- "God did it. It's a miracle. There is no reasonable explanation." Joseph had all the difficulty believing her that most of us have in believing miracles that happen to other people.
Of course, Christians think God does miracles all the time. From great big flashy miracles like raising the dead, to quieter miracles like making an empty gas tank get a praying mama and her bleeding child to the emergency room, Christians point to many things in everyday life and say "God did that."
Some of these quieter miracles might be explainable through natural events, and if we have previously disqualified God from intervening in nature, we'll always explain them away: "Well, the coolness of the tomb revived a very ill Christ and then four hundred people had identical mass hallucinations." (He was only mostly dead.) "Well, your gas gauge was obviously off and the mechanic who checked it as valid was lying and the fact that your car wouldn't start afterward was a coincidence."
If, however, we believe that God can and does intervene in nature whenever He wants, the simplest explanation to cover all the facts will often be "God did that." If we want to strain credulity and come up with very complex explanations that are still technically possible, we can; but the Bible squarely says that lack of faith is a choice. And honestly, if you are a person who believes Neil Armstrong walked on the moon vs. walking around on a secret government soundstage, then you should understand the kind of choice involved. Why is it easy to have faith in the veracity of NASA, but hard to have faith in God?
When we begin to look at miracles this way, it becomes silly how often we attribute miracles to chance, or worse, ourselves. Ultimately Scripture teaches us that every good and perfect gift comes from God. Even the ordinary grace in nature comes from Him; how is it that we attribute our extraordinary circumstances to ourselves?
So I'm going to make a resolution this new year to avoid saying "miracle" except when I mean "God did that." Maybe this will help me notice all the quiet miracles He does when I'm too busy with myself to see. Maybe I'll be a little less like Scrooge ("I did it!"), and a little more like Mary ("God did it!").
Something to think about, anyhoo. So there's your post on miracles, Baba. :)
Bye for now,
Breanna
