“Jesus began to reproach the towns where
most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.” (Matthew 11:20-24)
Throughout
the gospels, we read of Jesus performing many miracles, both in crowds and in
more intimate settings, and it can seem to us that the people of His time
should have believed in Him more readily and more profoundly with evidence such
as that. And we wish that we could have
seen those miracles ourselves, that we had been touched just as personally by
Jesus.
I think we
have been! I’m not thinking of the times
that we pray for God to grant us a healing or the easing of a family
situation: it’s too hard to sort the
supernatural out from the natural in such cases on an individual basis when our
prayers are answered. I refer rather to
our direct and constant experience of God in our lives, how He walks with us at
every moment and wherever we go.
Even though His
touch is gentle, and His soft words audible only to those who listen
attentively, we don’t leave our prayer and move into our daily lives without
being changed by His presence, not in a visible or superficial way but deep
down where we really live and grow. I consider
the way that God has changed me in particular over the years to be nothing
short of supernatural, nothing a rational or natural cause could sufficiently
explain. Beyond my very existence being
God's first (but not greatest) gift to me, His continuing presence, love, and
guidance, His care for someone as hidden and insignificant as each of us is, is
His greatest and most commonplace miracle.
I believe
that this is a good part of what Mary meant in her "Magnificat" (Luke
1:46-55), although she was far more aware of God's ready and active presence
than we are.
We shouldn’t
look at some other time or in some other place for God's miracles or His action
in this world but in the most obvious and important place, our very own lives.
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