Not All Miracles Look Like Miracles

Finding them in the ordinary, right in front of us

The other day, I was talking with a few friends about healing, and one of them had just experienced something he had been waiting on for eleven years.

Eleven years of asking, of hoping, of not seeing anything change. Then, suddenly… something did.

A group of us had gathered in the driveway, standing together and rejoicing over the good news. There was something about being there, outside in the open air, sharing in that moment, that made it feel even more real, not just something we heard about, but something we were witnessing together.

His wife said something that lingered with me. It wasn’t about certainty or permanence, but about gratitude—for the healing, and for whatever time they were given without the burden he had carried for so long.

We lingered there for a while, not just in awe of the healing itself, but of the waiting—the kind of faith that continues quietly and steadily, long after most people would have given up. And as we talked, the conversation turned to a question that comes up often, even if we don’t always say it out loud: why don’t we seem to see as many miracles now as we read about in the Bible?

I don’t know the full answer, but I have thought about it.

Part of me wonders if we are simply not looking in the right places—if we are overlooking the everyday miracles happening all around us. There are parts of the world where people risk their lives to own a Bible, where gathering together to worship is not comfortable or convenient but costly. In those places, you often hear more stories of dramatic healing—stories that cannot easily be explained away. Maybe there is something about hunger, about dependence, about knowing there is nowhere else to turn.

Where Are the Everyday Miracles?

But I have also come to believe something else: miracles are not absent. They are everywhere. We have just grown used to them.

The first hint of life

I see it most clearly on our farm, especially this time of year. What looked dead just weeks ago begins to stir. Buds swell on bare branches, and perennials push up through the soil as if winter never happened. Seeds that look dry, weightless, and seemingly lifeless split open underground and begin a process we still cannot fully explain.

By summer, I stand in front of a tomato plant taller than I am, heavy with fruit, and I think about what I am actually looking at. That plant is built from a seed, yes, but also from soil, water, and air. Its substance comes from what it draws in and transforms. Even light, though it has no mass, fuels the entire process. What looks like simple growth is a quiet orchestration of creation itself.

All of this from a seed

There is a law of conservation at work: matter is not created or destroyed, and yet something new stands before me, structured, ordered, alive. The code for how to do it was already there, written into that tiny seed from the beginning.

Scripture speaks to this same mystery in a way that feels both simple and profound:

“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground… and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.” (Mark 4:26–27)

“The seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop…” (Matthew 13:23)

There is soil. There is water. There is light. There is time. And there is something happening that we do not control.

I see it when chicks hatch, too. No matter how many times I watch it, I am never unmoved. 

Life emerges from within the egg at exactly the right time, with exactly what it needs, following instructions no one ever taught it.

When you consider how something so small and ordinary—an egg, a seed—becomes something alive.

Right on time

These things are so consistent that we have stopped calling them miracles. But they are.

And then there is healing.

I believe God healed me from blood cancer, but it did not happen in a single, undeniable moment. It was not the kind of story that leaves no room for questions. It came through a process, through doctors, through time, through decisions, and through the care of people placed in my life at exactly the right moments.

My brother Carl was my donor. He was my only match, though not a full one. Despite having German heritage, they could not find a full match for me in the general population, which is highly unusual. Even among my seven siblings, there was not a perfect match. Ten years earlier, I likely would not have had that option at all.

And yet, there he was—my brother, at just the right time.

There is no single moment I can point to and say, this is where it happened, and yet, looking back, I do not doubt it.

There are moments in Scripture where healing is immediate and unmistakable, and sometimes it comes after long years in a way that removes every other possible explanation. In John 5, we are told about a man who had been unable to walk for thirty-eight years before he was healed. That detail is not incidental. It eliminates coincidence and leaves no space for gradual recovery or misdiagnosis. When Jesus tells him to rise and walk, there is only one conclusion left.

I have wondered at times if, in some cases, God allows the waiting to stretch long enough that when the answer comes, it cannot be attributed to anything else. Not always, but sometimes.

Scripture also speaks clearly about faith:

“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt…” (James 1:6)

And yet, just as striking is what happens after healing. In Luke 17, ten men are healed, but only one returns to give thanks, and Jesus notices:

“Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” (Luke 17:17)

Gratitude is not a small thing. It is recognition, and recognition leads to testimony.

There is a quote that often comes to mind:

What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today?

It is not Scripture, but it asks something of us, because gratitude does more than acknowledge a blessing. It aligns our hearts with its source.

I do not pretend to understand why some are healed and others are not, and I would not try to explain prayers that seem unanswered. We do not see from where God sees, and I have learned to be careful where Scripture is quiet.

But I do believe this: If we are still here, there is a reason.

That does not mean those who are gone did not have one. It simply means their work may have been completed in a way we cannot fully understand.

For me, there has always been a quiet sense that something in my life is not finished yet—not something grand or visible, but something still unfolding, still being shaped, much like the seeds I plant each spring, which carry within them more than I can see at the time.

Maybe miracles are not as rare as we think.

Maybe we have simply learned to overlook the ones that happen slowly, quietly, and right in front of us.