A miracle is any event whether applied to one’s self, others, or the world we encounter through our own senses, which defies explanation. I’m setting up the boundary for my explanation.

Many events defy explanation. Take the shooting in Kalamazoo. Apparently, without motive, we were told a Mr. Dalton went on a random shooting spree until he surrendered to the police; allegedly without incident. One could argue that if you were anywhere near him during these events: It was a miracle that you weren’t killed. If you had been 5 minutes earlier and undistracted you could have easily been a victim.

If a serial killer was killed in a plane crash (after serving time) is that a miracle…considering that 180+ people died or was that a tragedy? The victims and their families might sit back and consider it a miracle since the odds of a plane crash are so low, but if the serial killer had been killed in car accident, that would be downright normal-not miraculous.

To give God credit would mean knowing God, seeing God, getting moment to moment direction from God (I presume) to give God credit. It’s sort of like winning the lottery. The odds are always against you, but you can’t win if you don’t play. Thus, daily prayers clearly provide the fodder for being saved from an undesirable circumstance, until it doesn’t. Meaning that if you play the lottery and never win-what did you expect? That is a simple view, but again, fundamentally, a miracle defies explanation.

One goes to the Doctor and obtains a diagnosis and another Doctor gives you another diagnosis. One Doctor says you’re on your death bed the other says you’re not. The death bed Doctor provided the diagnosis for free and only obtains compensation by treating you the other Doctor obtained an examination fee. If one did nothing for two years and noticed no bad health, but at 800 days you get sick and need treatment, the treatment didn’t match either Doctor’s opinion, was it a miracle?
Granted my boundary or boundaries for a miracle are pretty narrow really. But I think many people, give credit to a miracle, when pure chance is more logical, since the collection of events and people in our life are pure chance on any given day. How many times have you passed an accident on the road and thought to yourself, it is a miracle that this didn’t happen to me. The next day you read in the paper that the accident was caused by texting: yea, no miracle, nothing to see here folks.

People hear voices, sounds and credit God for it. But those people are more than likely crazy. Whether they hear God or Satan-medicating them usually clears it up.

What would impress me is: if I were standing by a pond and the waves spontaneously generated from shore, proceed to form into circles, travel to the center and disappear into themselves. That would defy explanation because that violates the order of the universe.

By the way, good topic.

You are a very generous person and I am so unworthy of your kind words.

You asked a very good question; "What is the difference between G*D' will or His grace or his intervention, from a miracle?" I do not think there is a difference, as I see it, all things happen for the will of G*d. The Hebrew word for miracle is nes, which simply means elevated. So a miracle is an elevated and elevating event. It is something extraordinary that happens, where we see G*d's hand clearly. In the words of the Talmud, “The one to whom the miracle is happening, does not recognize the miracle.” The reason for this, we take unnatural things as expected... a seed growing into a tree or a baby coming from a single cell.... these are accepted as natural, but there is nothing natural about them. Every now and then, G*d emerges from His hiding place and breaks through the self-imposed shackles of nature. The sea is split. A scientific rule is broken. Mother Nature is proven wrong. Perhaps, a child is cured from an incurable disease. Or our nation is saved from a seemingly hopeless situation. And it is through these supernatural events that we realize that nature too is merely a creation of G*d. It is important to realize, we as His creation have rules... G*d has no rules, He is the giver of the rules. Is there a line between miracle and G*d's will, I don't think so. If you look at your life, you will see in hind sight where He has touched you or a circumstance. Even in the bad times, He was there..... and that is evidenced by your being here now.

Recently, well relatively so, I read a story about the Iron Dome which protects Israel from inbound missiles. A Hamas commander is quoted as saying: "We do aim our rockets, but their G*d changes their path in mid-air.” And from the Iron Dome battery commander is quoted: "A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated (its trajectory). We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or a central Tel Aviv railway station. Hundreds could have died.

"We fired the first interceptor. It missed. Second interceptor. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.

"Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that…sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a G*d!’

“I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of G*d send that missile into the sea.” http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24811/Default.aspx

Look at this... wind is natural but a wind at the very time when it would send a missile to the sea.... perhaps natural. But, the commander saw through the "natural" event to see the hand of G*d. Do you see nature and natural occurrences, or do you see through the veil and see the hand of our Creator and the miracles He produces each second of our lives?

I know that I have looked back to events in my life and kicked myself in the rear for making bad choices and done the what ifs. This is a gift, we know what we did wrong and we use those moments to make better decisions. We move forward with these gifts and each time we are faced with decisions of right and wrong, it becomes easier to make the right choices. We can do nothing about the past, but we can certainly change our futures. When you look at it, it is not our pasts that matter but what we are right now. As I see it, you are the best version of you.... and your future is a gift box just waiting for you to open it!

An excellent response! An old movie, but a real good one... Signs had a monologue similar to what you expressed: "Graham Hess: People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I'm sure the people in group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation is a fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"

I guess each of us have to answer, what kind of person are we... do we see signs or just luck!

Again, an excellent response!

An excellent response! An old movie, but a real good one... Signs had a monologue similar to what you expressed: "Graham Hess: People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I'm sure the people in group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation is a fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"

I guess each of us have to answer, what kind of person are we... do we see signs or just luck!

Again, an excellent response!

It was my habit back when working as breakfast cook in Taos, to get up at 4am to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and write. On one of these occasions, a voice said, "Jesus only had to say three words: 'Resist not evil.'" The novelty really impressed me. I spent about twenty minutes before I had to leave for work before deciphering it. Failing, I went out to my car.

Just at the beginning of my shift, Linda, one of the owners, said she had a book for me. She said she tried to read it but kept getting the message the book was for me. At first break for a cigarette, I went out front to the picnic benches and started to read, randomly opening to a page around the middle. The first sentence I read had a footnote. I love footnote facts, the trivia they reveal, so I read it: "Leo Tolstoi believed that Jesus only had to say three words: "Resist not evil.'"

Thirty years later, I understand that to be the ultimate truth of Christianity. Sorry, it took so long.