Don’t Miss Jesus While You’re Looking for a Miracle

By Pastor John Erickson

When we think about God doing something powerful, most of us picture something hard to miss. A dramatic healing. An impossible answer. A situation that changes so completely that everybody knows who did it.

I believe God still works miracles. I believe we can ask him for healing and bring him needs we cannot solve.

But I also wonder how often we become so focused on the extraordinary event that we overlook the One it is supposed to reveal.

We can spend our lives waiting for the next unmistakable moment and miss what Jesus is doing right in front of us.

A sign points somewhere

Think about Moses encountering God at the burning bush. The fire does not consume it. Later, signs accompany Moses as he confronts Pharaoh and leads God's people out of slavery.

The miracles do more than create amazement. They reveal God's presence, authority, and purpose.

The same is true in the ministry of Jesus. He heals people, feeds crowds, restores lives, and confronts evil. Those acts express real compassion for real suffering. They also invite people to recognize who he is.

In John 6, Jesus feeds a crowd, and the conversation eventually turns toward the bread of life. He speaks about people looking to the Son, believing in him, and receiving eternal life.

It would be possible to enjoy the meal and miss that invitation entirely.

That is the danger of treating a sign as the destination. We can admire what Jesus does without responding to Jesus himself.

Ordinary does not mean abandoned

Reading the Bible can sometimes give us the impression that faithful people spend every afternoon watching something spectacular happen.

Part of that impression comes from the way we read. Events separated by years or generations sit only a few pages apart. We move from one extraordinary moment to another without living through all the ordinary days in between.

Scripture also tells stories of people waiting, working, raising families, making decisions, and trying to be faithful. God's providence is at work through circumstances that do not always announce themselves with thunder.

Your life is not a spiritual failure because Tuesday looked like Tuesday.

God may be at work in the conversation that leads toward reconciliation. In the courage to confess something you have hidden. In the patient care of a friend. In a quiet act of obedience that nobody else notices.

Those things do not make us stop praying for miracles. They keep us from deciding that the absence of a dramatic event means the absence of God.

What could "greater works" mean?

In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples that believers will do his works and even greater works because he is going to the Father.

That is a startling promise. How do you improve on raising the dead?

I understand this passage in connection with what Jesus says about going to the Father and sending the Spirit. His death, resurrection, and exaltation open a new stage in God's mission. The good news will go outward through his people.

Christians interpret the details of "greater works" in different ways. But the promise certainly should not become a competition to produce a more impressive spectacle than Jesus.

The passage is about dependence on him and the work that glorifies the Father.

Consider the scale of what follows in Acts: people from different nations hearing the gospel, communities formed by the Spirit, and the message of Christ moving beyond the places where he had walked during his earthly ministry.

A transformed human life is no small thing.

A changed heart is worth noticing

We can become accustomed to the language of conversion and forget what we are describing.

Someone who has been defined by hatred begins learning to love. Someone who has hidden in shame discovers the freedom of confession. Someone who has lived only for themselves begins giving themselves away.

That is more than adopting a respectable hobby.

God's promise in Ezekiel 36 describes cleansing, a new heart, and the presence of his Spirit. The language reaches into the deepest part of a person. God is not simply decorating the outside while leaving the heart untouched.

Sometimes we are so familiar with the vocabulary that we stop being amazed by the reality.

I do not want to miss that work because it did not arrive in the form I expected.

Let the wonder lead you toward him

Paul speaks in Romans 15 about signs and wonders accompanying his ministry. Yet his ambition is the proclamation of Christ where Christ is not known. The extraordinary works serve the good news; they do not replace it.

That is a helpful way to examine our own prayers and expectations.

Am I asking Jesus to meet a need? Good. Bring it honestly. Am I also willing to receive him, trust him, and be changed by him?

If the answer takes longer than I want, can I keep noticing his presence? Can I celebrate another person's growth without dismissing it as less exciting than a public miracle?

And when I have a story of his goodness, can I use it to point beyond myself?

We do not have to make every testimony complicated. Sometimes it begins with something simple: my life is changing, I did not do it alone, and I know the One I want you to meet.

His name is Jesus. Do not miss him while you are looking for what he can do.