Miracles

Just watched the tv show "Miracles" (awesome show, highly recommend it), and it made me think: just what are miracles? Do they exist today or are they a relic of the past? Were biblical miracles literal or simply the expression of changes in the human heart? Do you believe in miracles?

As for me, yes, I do believe in miracles. I believe that some of the biblical miracles were simply a matter of interpretation of actual historical events. But I don't believe that all biblical miracles can be assigned to historical events. I believe that God was more active in the early church because that was what was needed at the time. I don't think miracles are the be-all and end-all of faith - in fact, to a certain extent, they deny faith because when you see the miraculous, what is the need for the belief in things unseen? I believe that miracles exist today - some noticed as miracles, some not called miracles (for example, when the plane ran off the runway in Canada and no one was killed, that, my friends, is a miracle whether they call it a miracle or not). I don't think that miracles are as prevalent as some of my fundamentalist colleagues would like to believe - in fact, anything that makes G-d into your person genie or some freak show (I'm talking about pretty much all tv healers here), has very little of the miraculous in it. But I don't believe that G-d is an uninterested bystander. I've seen too many coincidences - and quite frankly, one out-and-out miracle - to not believe. I just don't think that the power of G-d to perform the miraculous gives the Christian an out or an excuse to not try your hardest. I think G-d often uses people to perform common-place miracles, which means, quite frankly, as a Christian, I have to try harder to open myself up as an instrument of the Almighty. OK, 'nuff said.