You and I think way too much alike. I asked almost the exact question to a friend the other day. Having seen so much suffering in the world, I had a very hard time believing that God would provide for such minor inconveniences while more pressing needs seemed to be left untouched.

So, to answer your question: What is God? It is entirely possible, but it seems unlikely. Further, to proclaim it as God sets us up to discredit or diminish His true providence to those listening. In the end, I would thank God for the providence (privately), but not publicly credit Him with this minor miracle.

Good question, Jason! It’s good to get my brain working this morning!

Jamie, you used the word that came to mind when I read the article: providence. Isn’t that acknowledging God’s provision and care in the midst of our circumstance? I agree with you, however, that it is sometimes wiser to whisper the prayer in private or perhaps amongst close friends. I have been dismayed in church to hear people praise God’s intervention for some smaller, almost trivial safety during the same prayer time that someone has just shared their pain over the sudden death of a loved one. I believe both are valid experiences of God’s providence, but how to respond? “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) is easier said than done.

The bigger question for me is, who am I to determine what is “good” in my life? Why aren’t the things I call bad just as likely to be God’s loving providence as the good? Well, of course they are, I just rarely have the eyes (or humilty) to see it. For example, the last seven years have often felt like a curse to me as I’ve struggled with many different forms of isolation in my tiny rural community. I have begun to identify with words like pilgrim, captive, desert, etc. But in the last several years I have also begun to discover how much God loves the pilgrim, the alien, and how he leads and refreshes the captives and speaks tenderly to those he calls into the desert (Hosea 2:14). It’s taken me years, but I’m starting to be able to thank God for His providence in this difficult, painful situation.

Sorry, Jason, if I broadened the topic from the trivial to the not-so-trivial. But I guess that’s the issue for me: where do we draw the line between the two, and how can we be sure?

I think it was a God moment; a time when He was watching out and helping His son. I have no problem with a blending of free will and the sovereignty of God. God is a personal King who wants to be involved in every area of His children’s lives, the same way we as human parents want to be involved in our children lives. Helping us find lost keys, that is just God saying He loves us.

As far as Jamie’s comment about the suffering in the world – well, Einstein’s theory of relativity shows that time itself was created (i.e. it can be slowed down, stopped, or speed up). As such, God must be outside of time – allowing Him to personally interact with each person on this planet for as long or short as He wants too while at the same time giving Him plenty of “time” to provide/handle/solve all the ‘major’ issues of the world. In a nutshell, God is not limited by the same restrains what we are so He could can and does both. =)

(FYI – Einstein physics also does away with the whole free will versus sovereignty of God debate. It is no longer an issue.) =)

Doesn’t have to be…

But we had an old gentleman in our church who passed away a couple of years ago that is oft quoted as saying “There are no coincidences… Just times when God chooses to remain anonymous.”

I like that.

“When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.”
-William Temple

I remember you telling that story (unfortunately, I don’t remember the message you shared after the story – yeah, I suck, I know )

I actually debate quite a bit whether coincidence exists or not. I’m reminded of those who constantly say: “there are no such things as coincidences” not to mention what Clay repeated above:

“There are no coincidences… Just times when God chooses to remain anonymous.”

With your keys – I *would* brush it off as coincidence HOWEVER, given you were there at the ACTUAL moment they were FOUND – one week to the DAY they were lost – I’m going to have to go with a God moment. I mean really….coincidence that they were found one week later AND that you were present at that exact time? That would be what? A million to one? Coincidence just isn’t that good and talented. In all logic – given that it was a week after you dropped them ON the slop IN the (how many inches of) snow – they should have been lost forever. At least for a VERY long time to the point that if they were ever found – all the keys on the chain would most likely be irrelevant. (I told you skiing was bad).

Besides, look at all the people who were there who may have been affected and effected by that circumstance. Not to mention all the people that guy (who found them) may have told. Look at the congregation (or was it at Bible study? I don’t exactly remember) who heard that story….it’s a good reminder that the same God who creates and is in charge of the BIG things actually cares for the small things too. Think of how many need(ed) that reminder. I’m curious – did you get new keys made or did you find the keys *before* you had to spend the money?

“That would be what? A million to one? Coincidence just isn’t that good and talented.”

Considering that we have 8 people in this thread, assuming a 20 year period for each person in the thread to have a staggering coincidence happen, and assuming the chance for such a coincidence to happen is in one in a million;
then we have a 5.8% chance of someone in this thread having such a coincidence happen to them.
Our innate understanding of probability is pretty bad, and gets even worse when you consider large numbers of people, long time periods and lots of repeat trials.

To me this looks like a classic example of chance.

Hmm. Coincidence or God? I like you am of the analytical sort and I tend to look at moments of coincidence with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Truth be told though, I am left with a quandary. One the one hand, my experience of any true God moment seems to be of the coincidental sort at first blush. But I know that is not to say that all coincidental moments are necessarily a moment that God has intervened.

Mostly I’m left wondering if a concept of providence or sovereignty need be in conflict with general free will. My belief is that someway these can coexist in a way that the general calvinist/arminian argument doesn’t conceive of.

But that leaves the question then of whether this moment is a moment from God or a moment of coincidence. To me, there are three possibilities that this could be a God moment: its effect on you, its effect on your father and its effect on the man who found your keys. So I guess I find myself left with it as an existential sort of answer, did it lead to some sort of spiritual moment in your life that had to do with your view of God? Then it was a God moment. If not then it wasn’t. This probably isn’t the best way to judge a coincidence but it appears at least tenable to me.

Great question – was just talking about it with a friend tonight. I appreciate everyone’s comments so far – here’s pushing it in another direction…

Maybe the bigger question is, why do we really want to know? Perhaps because if we can determine that it WAS God, then we will feel confident when we pray for small things, and even more confident when we pray for big things (“If God wants me to find my keys, then of course he wants -blank- to happen!”)

But…if it wasn’t God, then are our prayers just futile exercises?

Sometimes I feel like I look for signs of God’s involvement in my life so I can hope to control his involvement more in the future, when I really need it. But I’m forgetting that he is ALWAYS present and “involved” in a dynamic relationship that isn’t as formulaic as I would sometimes like it to be.

// Side note // For a funny take on small miracles and God’s involvement in the mundane, watch this clip of “Friends”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yuGWSV1dS8

“If you want something enough and your heart is pure, wondrous things can happen!”

Good stuff everyone!

@Jamie – my condolences on thinking like me : )

@Becky – your words remind me of Job’s: “Shall we accept good from God and not evil?”

@Julie – I think I’m somewhere in the same place. It’s such a trivial incident…but mind-blowing when you think about it.

@Josh – Kudos for bringing Einstein to the discussion! Actually, I think you’re on to something there.

@Clay – I like that too. Thanks for sharing.

@Melissa – Nice quote!

@Alex – Nothing like good old math to ruin the party, eh? (Kidding)

@Bryan – I like what you’ve done with this. You’re recognizing that every moment is potentially God-bathed based on how we receive it. I think Jesus would agree.

@Jesse – You’re right, this has a great deal of bearing on prayer. If we see God in the little circumstances of life, we’re likely to have more faith for prayer. However, I find it interesting that those who have an overdeveloped sense of God’s sovereignty tend not to pray at all (because everything is determined). Seems like there’s some middle ground…

I’ve been thinking about those things from a different angle, and some aspects of it might be a bit ‘flashy’ and both ‘unorthodox’ from a charismatic view and totally ‘unscientific’. I have had a lot of ‘small coincidence miracles’ in my life, even though I tend to forget them. And I can not deny that there must be at least something beyond the material stuff we know behind them.

If it’s God acting, then woe to me! Why do I only have faith fo pray in faith for small insignificant things? Why don’t I have faith to pray in the same way for things that matter? I don’t know, and it’s very frustrating that most of the time that I have faith like a musterd seed only for things
most of the time that I have faith like a musterd seed only for things smaller than one… If it’s been GOd, the I have been faithfull in the futile and totaly unable in anything that matters…

And now for the flashy part: If it’s not God, what is it then? The power of faith and positive thinking is not only somehing that works psychologically nor something that only calls on spiritual beings to do something for us (God, demons, angels, whatever) but it must be an unknown power that lies in our own spirit. I would definitely place it in the category of what people call ‘paranormal’, or in the field of what we’ve left behind when we built up a whole science system on the materialistic dimension of the world. Things that might be a part of humans as spiritual beings, who don’t know about the abilities of their spiritual side… (I do think a lot of the ‘occult’ falls into the same category, not done by any kind of demons, but by the human spirit itself, which is not to say I don’t believe in evil spiritual entities, I can’t deny them at all) So what I say is that strong faith and willpower focussed in the right way can sometimes manipulate the physical world and do things that seem impossible.

(now I’m reminded of Adrian Plass in one of his sacred diaries, who wants to unfold a paperclip ‘in faith’)

I have no way of explaining this but very magical unscientific explanations… And by the way, I think some of the miracles of some strayed-away hypercharismatics must be in the same category. They are so trained in the spiritual side that they wouldn’t even notice if they’ve scared away the spirit and doing it in their own power now (and sometimes they might be channeling something else too)

(and now everybody looks at me, yells ‘freak’ and never takes me serious anymore…)

shalom

Bram

ps: I’m turning a longer version of this comment into a blogpost…

Re-reading I realise my explanation is only relevant for those small coincidence miracles in which people have prayed hard for somethings… So it might be not applicable at all, sorry…

[...] 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment At the pastoralia blog there is a very interesting discussion about smal coincidences and litte miracles, with the question if they are just coincidences or God. [...]

@Becky, your definition of providence is accurate, which is why I my answer to the question was ambiguous. Might be God, might not be God. In not knowing, I would thank God. Even this is not just about covering our bases but about affirming that all good is God’s, even if He didn’t intentionally intervene in this case. For me the concern is less about whether it was God or not and more about how we might misuse such scenarios to bolster the faith to others who will further dismiss us.

@Josh, given what I was just saying to Becky, you can see that my comment is not at all about God’s capacity, but about our response to such things. On a side note, I don’t think we can be too quick with assertions about God’s relationship to time, but that is an ENTIRELY different topic (wink).

@Alex, I think you nailed it with the probability point. This doesn’t diminish God’s capacity, but it helps us gain perspective. I have heard just such stories of unlikely probability that were used to affirm some pretty atrocious theology & practice.

[...] have two more coincidence stories to tell. Honestly, my response to the car keys incident was plain-old, head-scratching bewilderment. Nothing [...]

Jason, This was not the only time this happened to you.

I remember skiing at Park City ski resort in the spring on a beautiful sunny day when we all still lived in Park City. I was skiing with your Step Dad Dave and brothers Drew & Dylan. We were all stopped at a ski lift waiting to get on when Dave noticed something sparkling in the snow. Dave reached down and picked up some keys on a key ring.
He recognized them as yours. We called Jenell and found out that you had lost those keys months earlier somewhere at the resort while skiing!!

Hmm. That changes things a bit, doesn’t it?

What changes is the fact that you obviously need to wear your keys around your neck or at least attach them to your belt loop….then again, you can always get both your ears pierced multiple times and put a key ring through each pierced hole. Although that might make you look a *bit* conspicuous….but that’s just a “last resort” scenario.

I must have learned my lesson because I stopped losing my keys on a regular basis about 10 years ago : )

Ah, but what have you been losing on a regular basis since then? Haha.

[...] is my last coincidence story for now. The car keys made me scratch my head and the drunk uncle incident made me wonder about God’s involvement [...]

In the ‘coincidence’ category my favorite story was while I was on a mission trip 20 years ago in Santa Marta, Colombia. On a day off I decided to take our small team to a beach for some R&R and flagged a cab asking him to take us to the best beach in the area. We drove for what seemed WAY too long since Colombia was then a dangerous place and I was getting nervous. But as the cab turned off the main road and started down some bumpy gravel road we came upon a beautiful sandy beach with a small fishing village. When we got to the village the cab driver went inside a hut and came back telling us to climb into a small boat. He then proceeded out into the bay, rounded a point into a much more breathtaking bay… and gorgeous beach… nearly deserted… easily the most remote place I have ever been on earth. The cabbie let us off and said he would come back and get us in 4 hours… yes, I was scared but wasn’t going to let my team know that .

As we were setting up our camp a man comes walking out of the woods behind us and in a thick southern drawl says “I thought I heard some english over here”. He was more touristy than we were with his floppy hat, hawaiian shirt, and flip flops.

We start talking and it turns out he is from Tulsa and is on his last day of a mission trip and was also deposited on the beach. I told him that I had once lived in Tulsa and my family still did… when we exchanged names he said “Lancaster, you wouldn’t know Doris and Ken would you?” I told him that they were my parents… he said “My son used to date your sister, Kim” He lived on the same street as my folks.

God? I don’t know… strange and surreal… absolutely!

Nice! I’m so glad someone else shared one of these. Very cool Duke.

God bless you guys, I missed not seeing you all at the conference!

ok Jason, I’ll share a few stories for you. =)

One summer my wife and I was living in Honduras with a local family while working with a mission agency. One day we came home to find a bunch of YWAMer at the house (our host’s son was translating for them). Among the YWAM team was a young man who was going to college in Arkansas and knew my step-mom and great-uncle!

Then there was the time I drove 15 hours from East Texas to Chicago to visit the Museum of Natural Science and Industry. While I was standing in line to buy tickets I hear my name, turning around I saw a lady I meet in Costa Rica the year before. She was living in Indiana at the time and had decided to visit Chicago that day. Craziness. =)

Thanks for sharing that Josh! Very cool.

Hello everybody,

I just wanted to join the discussion “coincidence or god” and share my two relevant stories. In both cases God was doing His miracles.

This happened last year. It was a Sunday. That morning I went to church and after a service I stopped by a book store (in church) to check out new Christian books. As I was waiting in a line to pay, there was a small pink note book (daily planner) on the counter with a scripture on the cover page. I took it in my hand and thought if I should purchase it. I loved the colour as it is my favorite so I contemplated for a few seconds and finally put it back on the counter, paid for my other stuff and left home.

That same night I had in plan to go see a movie with some of my friends. There was 4 of us and 2 cars. So I was supposed to pick up one of my friends and meet up with the other 2 at the cinema. And so I picked up my friend and got on a highway to meet with the rest. I was driving approximately 50km/h since there was construction going on and all 4 lanes merged into 1 or 2. Traffic was bad and suddenly my car shut down on me. The control lights inside went off and I lost control over it. I tried to start the car again but it wouldn’t move even when I pressed the gas pedal. My friend freaked out. I tried to remain calm but soon was starting to loose myself. Finally somehow I got the car on the side lane of the highway so that the traffic could flow normally.

But what now? We were stuck on a highway (2 girls in their early 20s), at 10 o’clock at night in middle of November. I live in Canada and the weather here is pretty chilly during this time of a year. As we sat in the car, I tried to start it over and over again, but had no luck. My friend looked at me and said, “please, you have to get out and try to get someone to help us. They will stop when they see you rather than me”. She was a bit overweight and thought that I would have more luck out there. Man o man..I took a few seconds and said a prayer in my mind, then got out and started waving at people, making a telephone sign with my right hand. As you can tell, we didn’t even have a cellphone with us. Both of us left it at home thinking we wouldn’t need it.

Cars kept on passing by. Guys kept honking and saying stuff as they drove buy. I was scared. There are all sorts of lunatics around and I was petrified. After a while, a white escalade slowed down and a woman came out. She seemed worried and offered us her cell to use, as well as a ride to where ever we were headed to. My friend looked at me in fear, as she didn’t want to get in a car of a stranger. I felt the same but we had no other option. We got in to the car, and moved on. It was quiet. I kept thinking what if they just kidnap us or take us somewhere else… My friend, who sat on my right, kept on pinching my right hand quietly asking the same questions that went through my mind.

I took the lady’s cellphone to call my mom to give me a number of our mechanic. I needed a piece of paper to write the number down, and this lady reached to the front compartment and handed over to me the very same pink notebook that I held in my hand that morning in the church. Praise the Lord. When I saw that notebook I felt peace come over me, and I KNEW that we were safe and that GOD was working his miracles.

When we arrived to the cinema, I told them my pink-book story. It turned out that we are attending the same church!!! It was just a miracle and God at His work.

I hope you all enjoyed this story. I just HAD to share. There was another story I wanted to share but maybe next time.

I wish you all a blessed week.
Dee

@Dee – Wow, you had me on the edge of my seat with that story! Very cool, thanks so much for sharing!

I loved this story!!!