Have you ever experienced the illusion when once something is brought to your attention, you start seeing it everywhere? Like when you purchase a particular model of car, you start seeing it more frequently on the roads? (This is a real phenomenon! It even has a name-the ‘Baader-Meinhof’ phenomenon.) It isn’t really that the frequency of those cars automatically increases because everyone wanted the same car you have, but because, having been brought to your attention, your mind notices and focuses on that car in a way it didn’t before. One man I heard recently received a sunflower emoji from a friend in a text for no real reason, then saw some the next day and snapped a picture to send her. Suddenly (it seemed), sunflowers were everywhere!
I have started to think of miracles in this way. As I learn about them, and recognize them in a way I haven’t thought of before, I begin seeing them everywhere!
A miracle is a manifestation of divine or spiritual power, and ‘should not be regarded as deviations from the ordinary course of nature’ (Bible Dictionary). Miracles are a response to faith, prayer and need. The miracles Jesus performed when He was on the earth were a part of His work here, both to teach us who He was and what He could do, and also to teach us truths in symbolism. His Atonement, culminating in His resurrection, continues as the greatest miracle ever wrought. Because His works were astonishing to our mortal minds, we tend to think a miracle must be something amazing or out of the ordinary. When we begin to see evidence of divine power all around us, however, we can begin to notice the miraculous in our most common of circumstances.
Elder Lawrence Corbridge explained it this way: “The most phenomenal occurrences of all time and eternity—the most amazing wonders, the most astounding, awesome developments—are the most common and widely recognized. They include: I am; you are; we are; and all that we perceive exists as well, from subatomic particles to the farthest reaches of the cosmos and everything in between, including all of the wonders of life. Is there anything greater than those ordinary realities? No. Nothing else even comes close. You can’t begin to imagine, much less describe, anything greater than what already is.
In light of what is, nothing else should surprise us…
The healing of the withered hand is not nearly as amazing as the existence of the hand in the first place. If it exists, it follows that it can certainly be fixed when it is broken. The greater event is not in its healing but in its creation.
More phenomenal than resurrection is birth. The greater wonder is not that life, having once existed, could come again but that it ever exists at all.
More amazing than raising the dead is that we live at all. A silent heart that beats again is not nearly as amazing as the heart that beats within your breast right now.
That one could see on a stone or through a special lens the modern translation of ancient text written on plates of gold is far less amazing than the human eye. The wonder is not what the human eye may see, rather, that it sees anything at all” (Stand Forever, BYU Devotional, Jan. 22, 2019).
Because a miracle is familiar, simple or universal, does not make it less wondrous; ‘…the magnitude does not distinguish a miracle, only that it came from God.’ (Ronald A. Rasband, “Behold! I Am a God of Miracles,” General Conference, April 2021) Some miracles are given for all of mankind: the sunrise each morning, the workings of our bodies, the restoration of gospel truths. And some are given for us alone: an answer to prayer, a feeling of peace in a troubled time, a protection from harm. “He will suit the miracle to the moment…” (ibid.) Each manifestation of His love and power in our lives, large and small, is a miracle-an evidence of His hand in our lives and a reminder of His care.
We may overlook the miracles when we insist that they come as we demand, however. Part of the wonder of His loving power in our lives is that He will be there and He will be right in whatever way that is manifested. Instead of limiting our view by only seeing those things we can imagine will bless our lives, we can expand our vision by seeing all of the ordinary, every day heaven-sent blessings in our lives as the miracles they are. As we begin to look in this way, we recognize that He is everywhere and we are never without His power in our lives!
What a miraculous, natural, divine power-filled, every day.
