Making Space For Mini Miracles In My Life

Funny how leaning into one vice helped me overcome another.

Okay, fair, a lack of faith isn’t technically a vice, but it’s something worth overcoming all the same.

Envy is definitely a vice though. And mine started from an early age.

. . .

Growing up in the church, it wasn’t uncommon for me to hear stories of God doing unexplainable feats in others’ lives - 

A man who felt called to move across the country but only had a few hundred dollars to his name. Come to find that he needs $2,203 (it’s always some weirdly specific number like that) to cover the bill for a new apartment. Moving in faith, he uses his last few hundred dollars to catch a flight. Then upon arrival, without any way of knowing how he’d get the money, he receives a call from a mysterious benefactor at a local church who gives him the exact amount of money (it’s always the exact amount) that he needs, not one penny less or more.

As a kid, you resolve a story like this as pure fiction or a pure act of God. I chose the latter. And it was from that early age that I wondered what it would be like to experience an act of God like that for myself.

After a couple years I started hearing stories of mini miracles outside of church - actors who moved to New York with nothing but a suitcase only to be discovered waiting in line for a bagel; musicians who drove hours for their idol’s concert without having a ticket but find their way backstage and are signed in a matter of moments.

Sure I’m no budding actor or undiscovered talent, but who doesn’t want a little magic in their lives? Who doesn’t want the unimaginable and unexplainable that makes it feel like you really have somebody up there looking out for you?

The envy didn’t truly hit home though until I started hearing stories from people close to me  - friends who got dream jobs they never thought were possible, family who saw financial provision for businesses and projects they started with nothing but a dream.

After hearing enough stories like that, I couldn’t help but wonder, almost demand, why mini miracles never found their way into my life . . .

GOING BEYOND THE EDGE OF MY UNDERSTANDING

When I shoot a basketball, it won’t always go in. Sometimes it will. Hopefully fewer times it won’t. Even though success isn’t certain though, it’s not unimaginable. It’s not a miracle when I make a shot, I don’t care what my high school coach thinks. So while I don’t always expect the ball to go in, I understand when it does. It makes sense when it does.

This is how I’ve lived most of my life - taking shots that make sense. Taking calculated risks that aren’t certain but have a good enough chance of success.

I’ve lived life on the edge of my understanding, never taking steps beyond my personal view of “what’s possible.”

To be fair, it takes effort to get to that edge. It’s not easy to take risks, even if there is a good chance you win.

In a few of my recent posts (here and here), I’ve laid bare how I sometimes back away from that edge. Times where I lament my lack of complete control over an outcome  - even if success is a possibility - and fail to take action. Or times when I play out the possibilities in my head ad infinitum - this time I make the shot, next time I miss the shot - and end up never taking the shot at all. 

This is different.

Overcoming those hurdles gets me taking sensible risks - finally sharing creative projects, making a career switch, asking that special someone out to dinner. Overcoming those hurdles gets me to the edge. 

I’m curious about the space beyond the edge. 

Because that’s where the man who flew across the country without $2,203 but got $2,203 lives. That’s where the artist who packs it all up and leaves their home behind just at the chance they make it lives. That’s where Peter lived when he walked out on water. That’s where the bleeding woman lived when she crawled through a crowd because she believed just touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak would heal her.

That’s where true faith lives. And if my bible lessons have taught me anything, it’s that faith precedes the miracle. It doesn’t follow it.

When I get to the edge of my understanding and take one more step, I create space. And that space between the end of my understanding and my actions is where faith lives. That’s where mini miracles have the space to thrive. But if I stop at the edge, I leave no space for those mini miracles. If I stop where it makes sense, I leave no space for God and the unimaginable and the unexplainable and the magical.

A FANCY WAY TO TALK ABOUT FAITH

The idea for this piece was initially sparked by a set of questions I kept hearing in my head:

I can appreciate that not everybody is religious and so these questions may not resonate. This is in part why I’ve called them mini-miracles, because while to me they are God, to others, they’re “the universe,” and yet others just crazy happenstance.

Regardless of what you call them, I hope I haven’t convoluted what should be simple: you’ll never see the extraordinary happen in your life without a little bit of faith. And faith only begins where understanding ends.

It doesn’t have to be a lot of faith. It doesn’t have to be a leap that takes you across the country or forces you to pursue some hidden talent.

In fact, I’ve found that I most envy the times God shows up in our everyday lives - when you step out in courage at your job for a task you feel called but not qualified for and He proves to be your victory; when you feel led to talk to a stranger, not knowing at all what you’ll say, but you end up having the conversation both of you needed and God proves that He is indeed able to support you in ways you never thought possible ; or when you share a blog post centered on your Christian faith that you’re sure won’t be appreciated by everybody, and God proves that He is in fact the only validation you need . . .

It shouldn’t be done haphazardly. Sometimes you’ll take a step past your edge of understanding and fall. Sometimes we’ll find we took a step out onto water where God wasn’t calling us to walk. Making space for mini miracles doesn’t guarantee that one will occur.

But this year, I will make space.