Miracles Hiding in Plain Sight
Daily Scripture
Deuteronomy 29:2-5
2 Moses summoned all Israel, saying to them:
You’ve seen with your own eyes everything the Lord did in Egypt, to Pharaoh, his servants, and all his land— 3 the great trials your eyes witnessed, those awesome signs and wonders! 4 But until this very moment, the Lord hasn’t given you insight to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear. 5 I’ve led you in the wilderness forty years now; neither the clothes on your back nor the sandals on your feet have worn out.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Rabbi Michael Zedek, author of Taking Miracles Seriously, preached at Resurrection on September 7. In this week’s GPS, we read and reflect on six Scriptural passages that Rabbi Zedek spoke to specifically in his excellent book.
Rabbi Zedek quotes from a classic novel by Willa Cather: “Miracles… seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.” * The key to the Deuteronomy 29 passage is verse 4: “insight to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear,” to realize that “every event points to an ultimate reality.” **
- Most of us tend to think of “miracles” as rare. That may just reflect our limited insight, the blinders we wear to the wonder of every moment, every day. Dr. Amy Oden wrote of the “pilgrim way of the entire Christian life, making us aware of God’s reign inbreaking already and, at the same time, of the not-yet fulfillment of God’s new creation.” *** How can you develop an openness to the daily wonder of “God’s reign inbreaking already”?
- Are you thinking, “This is silly. I’ve never seen a miracle”? Rabbi Zedek challenged those thoughts, writing, “There are countless miracles hiding in plain sight. It requires only a new way of seeing and understanding so that we may be present to what is there about us and in us always.” **** Considering the intricacies of your physical makeup and the vast precision of Earth’s rotation around the sun, can you cultivate the ability to see an “ordinary” event like waking up every morning as a miracle?
Prayer
Loving Lord, keep patiently giving me “eyes to see, and ears to hear,” the wonders of life in this miraculous world you created. Amen.
GPS Insights
Brandon Gregory
Brandon Gregory, who serves as a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection, wrote today's Insights. He helps lead worship at Leawood's modern worship services, as well as at the West and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
Like many of my Gen X friends, my childhood was a long series of life-threatening incidents. One case in point: I’ve sunk a sailboat (I’ll list more later). I was in high school. My dad, a friend, and I were out on a lake in Central Florida on a Hoby Kat—a two-hulled sailboat built for speed. A storm moved in quickly, which made things difficult for a ship propelled by wind, but doubly difficult because it was a lightning storm and we were in the middle of a large body of water. We were racing back to our house, and my dad actually said something like, “If we go any faster, something’s going to have to give.” Within a minute, both hulls snapped in half, and the mast fell over.
We were dead in the water, but didn’t sink immediately—the boat was slowly sinking. We were out there for about half an hour, and by the time a boat spotted us and came to our rescue, it was pouring. At that point, the boat was entirely submerged a few inches under the water, so there was no saving it. We never recovered the boat. It’s likely still at the bottom of the lake.
That’s just one life-threatening incident from the list, which includes being hit by a truck while crossing a road, being in a car that flipped over, and giving myself a concussion while climbing into an inflatable boxing ring. Also, apparently, drinking from a garden hose and riding in the back of a pickup truck can kill you, but those are hardly worth mentioning.
Is my improbable survival a case of divine intervention? Was I miraculously kept alive until this day so that I could write this very important blog post? Some may believe so, but I don’t. Arguing about the mundane or supernatural nature of my stubborn refusal to die misses the point, though. The message is the same: my life is a gift, and I should treasure it.
Sometimes we get so caught up in how and why things happened that we miss the more impactful questions. What can we learn from these events? How does this change our perspectives and our lives? Supernatural events might happen in your life, or they might not, but teaching moments that can change the course of our lives can be found in even the most mundane events. We all want the powerful stories of God supernaturally curing diseases or preventing unspeakable tragedies, but we don’t need miracles to see miraculous improvement in our lives. God can work through the mundane just as much as the supernaturally miraculous if we take the time to look for it.
© 2025 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Zedek, Michael, Taking Miracles Seriously: A Journey to Everyday Spirituality (p. 25). Sutherland House Books. Kindle Edition, quotation from Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop, published by Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 1927).
** Ibid.
*** Oden, Amy G., Right Here Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness (p. 82). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.
**** Zedek, p. 25. He also quoted from Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live. The first is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
