The Ordinary Unknown Miracle

Psalm 37:25

"I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread."

Learning important lessons is not usually an easy thing. In fact, sometimes it can be downright painful. Sometimes it can scare you so badly, it makes you want to curl up into a ball and wait for the storm to pass. Sometimes the lesson itself is a simple concept, simple enough that we don't give it much thought, and it takes a great, heart-stopping bolt of lightning to make us really see it, make us really understand. 

Learning lessons is often not fun at all. 

The lesson I learned recently is one that I was taught from infancy. It was something that I had always just understood to be true, almost like one of the laws of the universe. It is a lesson I should not have needed to re-learn, but I did. A lesson that any preschooler in a church nursery could tell you with innocent conviction. 

God provides. 

So simple, so true. If anybody had asked me a few days ago if God provides, I would've said yes in a heartbeat and, if asked, I could've provided examples and testimonials and Bible references. It is something I've always known to be true, always known with absolute certainty. Yes, God provides. Obviously. 

But sometimes, it is not so obvious. Sometimes circumstances scare you enough that it clouds your vision, and everything you know to be true is suddenly hazy and uncertain. Sometimes fear can act like a parasite, eating away at you from the inside, filling your mind with confusing questions until absolutes turn into hesitant maybes and black and white almost look like the same color. And suddenly, everything is not as clear-cut as it once was and the lines that at one time were clearly defined now seem strangely blurred. 

I recently had such an experience. A scary situation where I was unable to access any money from my bank account, had no idea in the world how to fix the problem, was a million miles away from my family, and was sitting on less than a quarter tank of fuel in my gas-guzzling Murano. I was beside myself. 

Fear was my biggest opponent as I frantically tried to fix the problem. It clouded my judgement, made me question what I knew to be true, twisted what I believed and confused my convictions, until I wasn't sure if God was going to provide for me. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it to where I needed to go to get the problem fixed on the gas I had left, or if that place could even fix my problem!

I was trying not to break down in front of strangers, doing my best to hold it together just long enough to get the issue resolved, watching my gas gauge like a hawk as I drove all over the city from one dead-end to another and then back again, so stressed and emotionally unstable that I'm pretty sure I came across to the people I talked to like a recovering drug addict. I was a wreck. I missed my family so much it made me sick. I had had enough of this new city and I just wanted to go home.

Fear said things like, "Sure, God usually provides, but will he provide this time?" and, "It sure doesn't look like God is providing for you" and, "If God wanted to provide for you, he would've done it by now". And many other things that I can't even remember. One arrow of doubt and deceit after another after another, right into the most vulnerable areas of my frightened heart…until the bombardment did its work and I wasn't too sure of anything anymore. Ask me then if God provides, and I might've hesitated, just a little. But that hesitation would've told the story. I wasn't absolutely sure.

Does God provide? Well? Does he?!

During this whole situation, I kept waiting for the miracle to happen…for the reason for the whole mess to be made clear to me, for God's reasoning to be made known in a glorious spectacle like a giant blinking sign that says, "THIS IS THE REASON I PUT YOU THROUGH THIS!!". I was waiting for some magnificent demonstration that I could look back on and say, "Look what God did here!"

It never came. 

Or, rather, it came, but I didn't really notice at first. It didn't come as a knight in shining armor, or ride to my aid like a glorious cavalry under a mighty banner of victory. It came like…well, like a long-lost friend. I ended up getting the cash I needed before I run out of gas, but it happened quietly, peacefully, after a day full of chaos and fear and noise. It was anticlimactic.

But it was no less amazing than if it had been a night in shining armor, swooping in to save the day right in the nick of time.

God provided. 

No, you don't understand. GOD...PROVIDED!! Even in the midst of the chaos and the crushing weight of doubt and uncertainty, he showed me that he does provide, he absolutely does, every time, and that he will always--ALWAYS--provide. Even if I doubt him. He provided me with what I needed, not with loud trumpets sounding and a caravan of heralds, but quietly, simply, peacefully, because it's not a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence requiring pomp and parade. It's something that happens a thousand times a day when we are not paying attention. It's quiet and it's calm, like a mother's gentle lullaby.

And as I drove home with a full tank of gas and money in my pocket, I felt ashamed. Yes, I had been pelted with doubt and fear and my emotions had been put through the ringer, but that's no excuse to question the goodness of God, or forget the many, many times he's provided for me in my lifetime. It's not okay for me to doubt like I did.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, God provides without me even knowing there was a need in the first place. The times when I do notice the need, it's not okay to forget he's provided the other ninety-nine. God is good. He promises to provide, and he has never broken a single promise ever, and he never will.

So. After the storm had passed and my ship emerged on the other side of the ocean still afloat, albeit slightly weather-worn, after I had collapsed onto my bed with zero energy leftover, after the noise and commotion had passed and all that was left was me and that gentle, persistent voice inside, I learned the lesson.

Even in the midst of chaos and fear and circumstances that are beyond our control, we wait for that still small voice, and watch for the miraculous, everyday miracle to occur. Because we know it will. And when it does, we must fall to our knees in gratitude, and then shout from the rooftops that God is good, that God is in control every minute of every day, and that he always, always, always, provides.

Numbers 11:21-23

But Moses said, "Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, 'I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!' Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?"

The Lord answered Moses, "Is the Lord's arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you."

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