I’m not one to use words or concepts lightly. Some people will say it’s a “miracle” when they got a certain job or when their team won a game. It may well have been a miracle, but the term is used too lightly, too recklessly.

Creation is a miracle. It’s a miracle that God loves me. The resurrection of One crucified is a miracle.

There are also personal miracles, ones that only I might recognize. My belief is based on a Biblical foundation but also on personal experience. I’ve had a few in my lifetime. I somehow feel both privileged and yet humbled by them. I’ll describe one later on.

A personal miracle is difficult to explain in it’s fullness to another person. Consider Balaam in Numbers 22. He was a prophet of God who was told to speak only what God tells him to speak. As he left with a couple of princes from Balak, his donkey seemed to have a mind of it’s own about what direction to go. Balaam beat his donkey and his donkey spoke to him. “What have I done to make you beat me?” Balaam answered the donkey. He found out that there was an angel of the LORD standing with his sword drawn ready to kill Balaam if he continued on the donkey.

“Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.”  (Numbers 22:31)

You can read the entire account about the donkey here or the entire account of Balaam in the OT in Numbers 22-24.

I would call this a personal miracle because, unlike the parting of the Red Sea, only Balaam saw the angel of the LORD.  The account seems to indicate the princes of Balak with Balaam didn’t hear the donkey or the angel of the LORD speak.

The donkey account gets a dozen verses. That’s it. We might be able to conjure some mental image of the event but I don’t think even Hollywood can create images that fully invoke in us the personal thoughts and feelings that Balaam had.  “He bowed low and fell facedown.” It was truly an event of Biblical proportions yet it was personal to Balaam. It was a personal miracle.

Thus I can tell you the account of a personal miracle that happened to me but there is no way that a few words can describe the depth of feeling and understanding that God gave me. Here is that account:

When I was still a young believer, several years after I accepted Christ Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I still occasionally struggled with understanding that God really loved me, a sinner, as much as He did.

I was working on some project and I needed two quarter-inch washers. I have a lot of hardware of numerous kinds, plumbing, electrical, screws, nuts, and bolts of all sorts, practically a personal hardware store in my own little shop. So finding a couple of common quarter-inch washers should be a breeze. I had half-inch and larger sizes, and many smaller sizes, some so small that you need tweezers to pick one up. But I needed two quarter-inch washers.

I can get very driven to complete something, so much so that I won’t eat or sleep until it is done.  I had already missed lunch looking for these washers and it was now almost dinner time. I found one but I had to have two or I could not finish the project. I looked everywhere, in the shop in the summer room, in the basement, all through the shed. I was frustrated, hungry, and worn out. Finally I cried out to God. (I should have prayed in the first place instead.)

Standing by the shed door, I took the one washer that I had and threw it into a junk pile in the shed. I knew that by doing that I might never find that washer again. (And I’d be really bummed out if I found one washer and needed the one that I tossed.) It was partly out of anger (one washer wasn’t any good to me) and maybe a little but out of faith (if God can find me one washer then He can find me two.)

I leaned on the shed door and almost cried. In my heart was something like “if You loved me then You would give me the washers that I need!” I was angry at God. My hand held on to a peg board that a previous owner had mounted on the back of the shed door. For some reason, I looked at my hand, then at the pegboard, then at the many rows of quarter-inch washers that the owner used to space the pegboard away from the back of the door. I ripped the pegboard off the door to find several rows of washers that were behind the pegboard. There were hundreds of washers literally inches from my hand as I was angrily crying out to God for just two.

I fell to my knees in tears. I wept bitterly. I cried tears of repentance. I knew that God loved me in that He sent His Son to die for my sins so that I can live with Him in Heaven forever. But now I had a very personal experience of God’s love and provision for me. No matter whether I got what I needed (as with the washers) or not, I made the commitment to never again doubt God’s love for me.  I can tell you that I never did doubt God’s love for me after that. And I have never been in want for a quarter-inch washer since then.

But these are only words. You were not there; you are not me. It was a profound personal experience for me. To have hundreds of what I needed touching my hand but like Balaam could not see them was too much for me to take lightly. God opened my eyes not only to see the washers but to see His love for me personally. Hollywood can’t give you the intense feelings that I had. I can’t even quite pull them up again after all these years. But I remember the essential aspect of the whole thing. God loves me — me!  And I will never again doubt Him. That is burned into my soul.

I praise and worship God for His holiness, for His creation, and for His love for me, a sinner.
God is good.