Miracle or Providence

Something I think is sorely lacking within the church is a true and proper understanding and distinction between providence and miracles. In fact few Christians I find have ever heard of the providence of God. What is providence? Well it is God acting and working his care and provision through ordinary means of creation. After the Colorado Shooting a few months ago I read of a young woman who was shot in the theater, taking a bullet to the head. Doctors were skeptical of her survival but when they went into surgery they discovered that she had a slight deformation of the brain that left her with a small channel of fluid running from the front to back of her brain. Under normal circumstances this would never have been noticed or caused any trouble. But when she was shot the bullet traveled through this channel of liquid leaving little damage and saving her life. Is this a miracle, I don’t think, instead its Gods providence. In his loving care he created this woman with this defect that would save her life. Providence in essence is divine coincidence that is not really coincidence but God in his sovereign all knowing all powerful action. I had a professor in university who once said “Sometimes providence  like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards..” That everything that happens to us is part of his plan. In question and answer 27 and 28 of the Heidelberg Catechism addresses providence:

“Q&A 27

Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?

A. The almighty and ever present power of God1 by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures,2 and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—3all things, in fact, come to us not by chance4 but by his fatherly hand.5

1 Jer. 23:23-24; Acts 17:24-28

2 Heb. 1:3

3 Jer. 5:24; Acts 14:15-17; John 9:3; Prov. 22:2

4 Prov. 16:33

5 Matt. 10:29

Q&A 28

Q. How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us?

A. We can be patient when things go against us,1 thankful when things go well,2 and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing in creation will separate us from his love.3 For all creatures are so completely in God's hand that without his will they can neither move nor be moved.4

1 Job 1:21-22; James 1:3

2 Deut. 8:10; 1 Thess. 5:18

3 Ps. 55:22; Rom. 5:3-5; 8:38-39

4 Job 1:12; 2:6; Prov. 21:1; Acts 17:24-28”

This is in contract to a miracle which is God acting outside of natural means. Providence can be explained by our physical minds because its Gods action using the means of the natural world. Miracles are God working outside of the natural system like one loaf of bread feeding 2000 people. I think what we contribute to miracle largely in our day and age is better understood as providence.

Yesterday at church I was talking with an elderly man, we talk quite often He fought in the Korean War and visited there recently when his grandson who lives in there married a Korean women. He knows I have spent time in Korea and his favorite topic of conversation is that. He mentioned that this same grandson and his wife just found out they will be having a baby, and this will be this man’s first great-grandchild. At this I was taken aback by Gods providence. Here is a man who almost 63 years ago put a lot on the line to fight in a war, put his own life on the line.  Little did he know all those years ago that he was fighting for his great-grandchild to be born 63 years later? I think that’s God’s providence.