Seven miracles to remind us God remains active

We’re one week away from commemorating the biggest miracle since creation, God being born into the world He created. I thought about that in looking at a letter from one discouraged WORLD member. He’s been in a church for four decades, but he now asks, “Is God Himself actually doing anything in the world? If God were actually actively present, if He actually did some things that humans and odds couldn't take credit for, Christianity would seem like something more than just another religion.”

Good question. Off the top of my head I can list seven highly unlikely occurrences:

First, it is miraculous that during decades of Cold War we did not have a nuclear war. I’m not aware of any time in human history that a massively effective new weapon hasn’t been used for such a long time—and we did come close to disaster many times.

Second, particularly after traveling during the past couple of years in the Baltics, Balkans, and Ukraine, I’m enormously impressed by the end of the Soviet empire from 1989 to 1991. None of the leading scholars predicted it. Ronald Reagan did, but that was at least semi-rhetorical. I had read in the Bible how God suddenly overturned powerful empires, but I’m impressed to see it with my own eyes.

Third, the spread of Christianity in China (a bit of which I’ve seen myself) is wonderful. If I were to see someone drop a brick on a bird so that the bird is flattened, and later see that bird come to life and fly once again, I’d think of that as a miracle, so the resurrection in China seems like a sign and wonder.

Fourth, I’ve visited many a hundred or so poverty-fighting ministries in the United States over the years, and the willingness of many individuals to sacrifice themselves to help others is another sign and wonder. They don’t derive any evolutionary benefit from doing so, and seeing long-time addicts and others get a life never ceases to astonish me.

Fifth, lots of books cover remarkably unlikely spiritual and physical changes that brought humans from death to life. Among the many books describing such changes are Eric Metaxas’s Miracles and Daniel Fazzina’s Divine Intervention: 50 True Stories of God’s Miracles Today. I’m skeptical enough to suspect that some of the 50 have naturalistic explanations or are exaggerated, but I don’t doubt that some are true and all could easily have occurred had God willed them.

Sixth, I have seem remarkable changes in myself and in people I know. The current issue of WORLD includes an interview with Virginia pastor Lon Solomon, pastor of a Virginia church, who described himself during his years around age 20 as a “sociopath.” That label would have fit me then also, yet he’s now a decent person and so am I, more or less. Maybe we simply matured, but many humans become more selfish as they age. These highly unlikely changes seem like God’s work.

Seventh, I almost always read a book only once, but the Bible is different—I learn something every time I go to it, which makes me think it’s a very special book, which makes me think that the very special things it describes are true.