Everyday Miracles

I (Aimee) wonder how many people watched the Chilean miners being brought up from about ½ a mile below the surface of the earth after being trapped for 69 days.  I haven’t heard or read any numbers yet.  I must admit that I didn’t watch all of it.  I only saw bits and pieces as I half-watched while getting over the flu this week.  But what I saw was very moving.  All of the men were greeted with cheers, handshakes, and hugs.  There was a large television set-up in the family camp set up nearby where the family members of the miners awaited them.  Photographs show them cheering and crying as their husband, father, or brother was brought to the surface.  When the final miner, Luis Urzua who was the shift supervisor, came to the surface the rescue was almost 24-hours old, but the people cheered with energy like they had just gotten there.  Then, I heard someone say something that really caught my attention: “It’s a miracle.”

Being slightly out of it because of the flu, I’m still not sure exactly who said it—the president of Chile, Urzua, one of the reporters—and I’ve heard it several times since then from many different people.  But then, when Urzua had been rescued, that was the first time that I had heard anyone say it about this situation, and it got me thinking.

In one of my first classes at California Baptist University (the first class I had with Sherann), our professor gave us an unusual homework assignment one day to write a definition for “miracle.”  Have you ever thought about it much?  When most people think of miracles they think of supernatural events: walking on water, raising people from the dead, multiplying the fish and the loaves, etc.  Jesus performed miracles, there is no doubt about that if you believe what the Bible says.  But our problem is that we are often unable or unwilling to notice God’s miraculous work in non-supernatural events.

We look at the survival and successful rescue of the Chilean miners and we are quick to say that this is due to steady heads, calm thinking, science and engineering, careful planning, patience, and so on and so on.  All of that is absolutely true.  Those things were critical to their survival while they were stuck underground and in getting them back to the surface.  So where was God working in all of this?

Well, who do you think brought peace and calm to Urzua so that he could organize the men and the food to keep them alive until they were discovered?

Who do you think inspired the workers on the surface with the correct way to go about the entire operation?

Who do you think gave hope and courage to the men and to their families?

These things all come from God, whether people want to recognize it or not.  Non-believers give the credit to science and human ingenuity.  But we know that God is the one who created us to be able to grasp science and to have human ingenuity.

We need to be looking for God’s not-as-obvious miracles that He works out in our everyday lives, whether big or small, so that we can marvel at His love and grace and wisdom, and so that we can give Him the thanks that He is due.

So, praise God that all of the men who were trapped survived the cave-in.  Praise God that workers on the surface were able to get them food and water to sustain them.  And praise God that they all made it safely to the surface.  Praise God!

Picture taken from MSNBC of Esteban Rojas, the 18th miner to be rescued, just moments after stepping out of the rescue capsule.  Photo by Hugo Infante / Chilean Government via Getty Images.