Miracles

"It was a miracle he survived that car crash"
"When I was dug out from the rubble, I knew that God had saved me"
"The bullet missed my heart by an inch - it must be a miracle"
"My love for God and His Love for me saw me through the ordeal"
"All the other children died, but God saved my little Johnny"

These are not actual quotes, but I'm sure you have heard many similar ones whilst watching the news or reading the papers.

Something terrible happens to someone, but doesn't actually manage to kill them, such as a car crash, bomb, earthquake, disease, mugging etc. and they thank God afterwards.

Does it matter that a hundred other people died horribly? No, because a Miracle occurred and God intervened personally to save YOU!
If God is so concerned about these people's lives, then why does he choose to allow them to go to work where they can have a building dropped on their head? Why doesn't he just make them feel a bit ill so that they don't go to work that day in the first place? Even better, why doesn't he hold up the building and tell everyone to get out before it collapses, or ensure that it only collapses when no-one is around to get hurt?

If somebody survives when many others did not, they call it a miracle. Why? Why should that person be favoured by God and the others not? To call the saving of that one person a miracle implies that the deaths of all the others must also be a miracle - God had complete control over the situtation, and decided to save one person and kill all the others. Do you ever hear anyone saying "My entire family died in that earthquake - it is a miracle!"

It's like being mugged and then thanking the mugger for returning your empty wallet.

It is such bizarre reasoning. God intervenes to save them from disaster, but for some reason does not intervene to prevent the disaster in the first place. If I asked you to stand in the middle of the road whilst a truck was coming round the corner, and then I pushed you out of it's way, would you thank me for saving you, or wonder why I had allowed you into that easily-preventable situation in the first place?

On a similar note, when people die believers often say that God has chosen to take them into his care - He has decided that their time has come to return to the realm of His heavenly Love.

Well, maybe. But when these people die a long, painful, lingering death from something terrible like cancer, or some other slow-working terminal disease, do you ever wonder why God chose that particular method to return them to his loving bosom?

God : "Hmmm.. let's see. Mrs Johnson is a good soul, I think I shall bring her to heaven now. How shall I do it - should I make her vanish in a flash of brilliant light, accompanied by the singing of angels, or shall I let her slowly die of cancer, alone in some bleak hospital bed? Hmmm.... Well, I don't want to give the game away, so terrible disease it is then."