Written By: Elizabeth Langford
The Little Miracles
There are more than one million words in the English language. Miracle, is just one of them. Just a teeny, tiny, seven letter word that like so many others in our vocabulary has shifted to become mainstream; an everyday word we use to describe something unexpected. We might casually say in conversation, “it was a miracle I got here on time,” alluding to the fact that traffic was horrendous that day. Or we comment to a friend, “it will be a miracle if I ever find my lost earring.” We remove goodness, wonder, awe, and sadly too often we remove God from the root of the word. Stripping it down to just another adverb who’s job is simply to describe the uncommon nature of the situation we’re referencing.
Or we think of miracles as so uncommon that they become something that happens to someone else, somewhere else, far removed from ourselves. We see them on the evening news, we read about them on social media, they creep into the conversations we have with our best friends, “did you hear the story about…?” When an airline pilot lands a jetliner on a narrow strip of water along the edge of New York City, saving the lives of everyone aboard we brand it the Miracle on the Hudson. And it is. It is a miracle of epic proportion. But what about everyday miracles? Is there such a thing? What about the out of the ordinary, unusual, and wonderful events that we can ascribe to God’s great love for us? The ones that happen without fanfare, without retweets and regrams. Do we even slow down enough to notice them? Do we give the credit of being real miracles?
In a world, and most certainly a culture, that is focused on what’s next, do we give God the credit and the glory for what’s happening now? Are we so quickly pulled into the next story, the next moment, the next situation that we don’t stop to recognize what we’ve just been witness to? Have we let God’s daily miracles become just another part of life? Do we use the word too quickly or do we assign it so sparingly that we don’t let the “little miracles” take our breath away?
Webster defines a miracle as an unusual or wonderful event that is believed to be caused by the power of God. Think about that for just a moment. An unusual or wonderful event that we can step back from, look at, and attribute to God. I don’t know about you, but when I think of it that way, my life has been a series of one miracle leading into another. A series of unusual events that has God’s handwriting all over it.
A few weeks back I was sitting at my desk at home working on a large project and found myself stuck. Stuck in the middle of a to-do list several pages long, a menagerie of sticky notes across my desktop that had begun creeping up the side of my monitor like kudzu in the South. I went from being in full motion, hands dancing across the keyboard to being almost paralyzed under the weight of the work before me. My natural inclination was to just keep going. To keep pushing on, pushing through the work, through the piles, trudging on towards an ever moving goal that rarely rests or stands still. An explorer needing to press on for fear that standing in one place for too long might bury me with no hopes of coming out on the other side. And then a little voice inside told me to stop. Breathe. Rest.
I reached for my journaling Bible and I shifted gears. I put aside the to-do list and focused on God’s words, the to-live list. And then I did something I need to do more of: I invited God into that moment with me. I asked for His help on my project and I realized that I was honouring Him, not bothering Him by asking for divine intervention. Not more than 20 minutes later a friend texted offering help on the project I was consumed with. It might not be a miracle of epic proportions but it was evidence of God’s great love and it left me awestruck with wonder at His unceasing faithfulness. In my asking for help, God used my friend as an answer to prayer. She delivered a small everyday miracle that my Father in Heaven had so graciously given me. So today I’m making it a point to slow down. To take notice of the little miracles. The everyday out of the ordinary wonders that are all around when we begin to look for them. I’m reminding myself to invite God into every project, every place, because if I know one thing to be true, it is that I am always in awe of the miracle of His love for me.
Elizabeth Langford is the Ambassador of Joy for Showit, Inc, a software company focused on building technology that enhances creativity. She is a follower of Jesus, a wife, mother, writer and speaker. Read her blog at elizabethlangfordblog.com and follow her on Instagram at instagram.com/elizabethlangford
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Showit, Inc.
Direct: (480) 239-5800 | elizabeth@showit.co
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