Finding Peace When the Miracle Seems Hidden

The healings Christ performed were instantaneous, visible to those who were present. “He said to the paralytic, ‘Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.’ And he arose and departed to his house” (Matthew 9:6-7). The crippled man with the gnarled body lying by the pool of Bethesda suddenly had an outward, physical change so that he could run and leap (see John 5:5-8). This was a miracle that had to astonish and move all who saw it. Another instantaneous miracle!

The feedings that Christ did were progressive. He offered up a simple prayer of blessing, then broke the bread and the dried fish, never giving a sign or a sound that a miracle was taking place. Yet, to feed that many people, there had to be thousands of breakings of that bread and those fish, all throughout the day. And every single piece of bread and fish was a part of the miracle.

This is just how Jesus performs many of his miracles in people’s lives today. We pray for instantaneous, visible wonders, but often our Lord is quietly at work, performing a miracle piece by piece, bit by bit. We may not be able to hear it or touch it, but he is at work, shaping our deliverance beyond what we can see.

You may be in the middle of a miracle right now and simply not be seeing it. You’re discouraged because you don’t see any evidence of God’s supernatural work on your behalf. David said, “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears” (Psalm 18:6).

Think of one difficulty you are facing right now, your greatest need, your most troubling problem. You’ve prayed about it for so long. Do you really believe the Lord can and will work it out in ways you can’t conceive? That kind of faith commands the heart to quit fretting or asking questions. It tells you to rest in the Father’s care, trusting him to do it all in his way and time.