One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more active with my bible study. I started reading the book of Joshua daily and journaling about my thoughts. An aspect of Joshua that stands out to me is how many big miracles there are. The river Jordan, the strange man, the ritual that made the wall fall down before the army – all of these are superstitious-sounding phenomena. So why don’t we see these crazy, spectacle-miracles today?

One reason is that, as often as they show up in the Bible, we are getting the highlights of religious history. They are frequent in the text, but if you laid them out on a timeline, they would seem far fewer and further between. To expect these to happen as often as we read about them is misleading.

God provides. How often do we hear that? But it’s true. He provides what we need. So if He provided Joshua and the people with an invisible dam or a section of dry river, than what they needed was to get across the barrier that was otherwise impossible at the time.

Notice I said at the time. Their miracles reflected what they needed. If something happened like that today, it wouldn’t be as awe-inspiring because of the crazy amounts of technology and progress. These advancements have had a great impact on the “spectacle” factor. But what is awe-inspiring today are personal miracles.

These are the kinds of miracles where an atheist friend approaches you about wanting to know more about God, or a disease that was sure to take a family member strangely just dies out, or you have a sense of peace after a disaster or catastrophe. These miracles stay with you. If these are the miracles He is providing, than they must be what this generation of Christians need. Miracles that are humbling, intimate, unexpected, and transformative – all things that technology cannot replace, and God always delivers.