Over the past few years, I have learned more and more just how deeply personal God is. Rather than forcing us, He has immense respect for the free will He has given us. He neither slumbers nor sleeps and is always at work for us, yet rather than making Himself conspicuous, He prefers to see in secret and to work in secret (Matt. 6:6). That is why, even when He performs a miracle, the person who experiences it may recognise it unmistakably as a miracle, while those who merely hear about it may think it was simply a coincidence.
Many of the miracles recorded in the Bible are concentrated in particular periods and served particular purposes. In the time of Moses, after four hundred long years of slavery under the great power of Egypt, God’s people needed to be liberated and firmly established in their identity as His people. In the time of Elijah, when apostasy had become widespread under the dynasty of Ahab, God’s glory needed to be made manifest. And in the era of the gospel, when the Jews were deeply shaped by expectations of a political Messiah, visible miracles were needed so that they might recognise and testify that Jesus—the one who suffered and was crucified—was in fact the Messiah promised by God.
Yet outside such periods, there were also many long stretches of silence—long enough to make people wonder, “Is God really alive?” It is striking that Paul, whose handkerchiefs were associated with extraordinary healings, was nevertheless concerned about the health of his spiritual son Timothy and prescribed him to take a little wine instead of only water for his illness (1 Tim. 5:23).
If miracles happened as part of everyday life, the free will God has given us would become almost meaningless. If God intervened miraculously in every urgent and desperate problem we faced, we might as well be programmed by God to move like artificial-intelligence humans. Of course, this does not mean that the world simply depends on what we human beings choose to do. Human freedom and God’s sovereignty do not conflict with one another. Rather, the world unfolds in such a way that, through it all, God’s ultimate purpose is accomplished.
God does at times perform miracles that are clearly visible. But most of the time, He is carrying out countless miracles in the spiritual, mental, and material worlds in ways that my five senses can barely detect. I suspect that when we enter heaven, we will be astonished to see just how thoroughly, personally, and intimately God was with us throughout our lives.
When we read the Bible and see people disobeying God, we often think, “How foolish they were.” But we can say that because we are reading Scripture after the fact, with the meaning of those events already interpreted for us. The people who lived then, just like us today, were dealing with a God who often works in hidden ways. Even now, God sends us many messengers, just as He sent prophets in the past. Yet, as people did then, we may feel a slight conviction and then simply ignore it and continue with our lives. Sometimes, if what we hear seems to go against our circumstances or desires, we may even feel offended by it. And when we respond that way, there is often no immediate punishment from God. That is why, both then and now, we so easily choose the path of disobedience.
That frightens me. God judges even the motives of our hearts, yet He may remain hidden and simply watch. He may repeatedly send us words of warning, yet if we want to pass them by carelessly, we are entirely capable of doing so. I am grateful that God is personal, but at the same time, that is precisely what makes Him frightening.
