When We Call Miracles Coincidences

John 3:12 says,

“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

This verse caught my heart as I read my bible this morning as I realized the depth and truth of the words being spoken.

Sometimes we want truth to come with something soft to land on. We want comfort before conviction. Ease before clarity. But truth is not always meant to feel easy. Sometimes truth exists to wake us up, to pull us back into awareness, and to remind us of what we have slowly stopped noticing.

Something else that has been lingering in my thoughts lately is this:

Satan does not necessarily need people to follow him. He simply needs them to drift away from God.

And one of the easiest ways to drift is to explain away the very moments that could have drawn us closer to Him.

We call blessings coincidences.
We call protection luck.
We call answered prayers timing.
We call miracles accidents.

The more I read scripture, the more I notice how often people doubted what God was doing right in front of them. Jesus performed miracles, healed people, provided signs, and still many denied Him. Some accused Him of evil. Some claimed His power came from darkness instead of God. Even standing before miracles, people still chose disbelief.

And honestly, I do not think we are very different today.

Recently, I took my children to an event because I simply needed to get us out of the house for a while. Being a stay-at-home mom and military wife can sometimes feel isolating. Apartment life starts to feel crowded and repetitive after a while, especially with little ones. We just needed fresh air and something different.

When we arrived, I realized I had forgotten my wallet.

Thankfully, the tickets were on my phone, but nearly all the parking nearby required payment. Somehow, I found a free place to park on the side of the road.

We made our way inside, only for me to realize I had also forgotten ear protection for the kids. I truly did not expect the event to be loud, but it was overwhelming almost immediately. I started considering leaving because both of my children were struggling with the noise, and I did not want the experience to become miserable for them.

Then someone kindly offered to go get noise-reducing headphones for my children.

It felt like such a small thing, but it changed everything. Suddenly my children could enjoy themselves comfortably.

Later on, my youngest — only six months old — needed a bottle. Trying to hold a squirming baby while preparing it by myself was becoming difficult, thankfully, the person next to me was happy to help.

Again, another small act of kindness at exactly the right moment.

As the evening continued, my baby grew tired but could not fall asleep comfortably with the headphones on. It had been about an hour and a half, it was getting late, and I did not particularly want to make the walk back to the car in the dark, so I decided it was time for us to leave.

When we reached the car, I told my son to stay on the sidewalk while I buckled his sister into her seat.

Instead, as I was buckling in his sister, he suddenly ran toward the other side of the vehicle before I had told him it was okay.

All I remember is lifting my head and seeing a car coming around the bend.

We were parked near a curve in the road, with another vehicle behind us. The speed limit was around thirty-five miles per hour if I remember correctly. There was no realistic way for that car to stop in time.

I started yelling immediately.

And all I could do was watch.

My son barely had enough time to register the car before he suddenly stopped and bowed his head down.

He stopped instantly.

What struck me most was that my son loves cars. He is fascinated by them. Normally he would have watched it go by, pointed at it, talked about it. But he did not. He simply stopped.

And in that moment, the only way I can describe what I saw was that it felt as though someone had stood in front of him.

He was safe.

Completely safe.

The entire ride home, he stayed unusually quiet, which is very unlike him. It honestly felt like he was processing something too.

A couple of days later, I finally watched the movie David, something I had been wanting to see for a while. During the scene where David defeats Goliath with a single stone, all I could think about was how quickly people today would explain that away as coincidence.

Lucky timing.
Lucky aim.
Lucky circumstance.

Not God.

And suddenly this verse from John struck me differently.

If we struggle to believe in the ways God moves here on earth — through protection, provision, kindness, timing, conviction, mercy, and grace — how could we possibly comprehend the fullness of heavenly things?

If every earthly blessing is dismissed, ignored, or explained away, eventually we stop recognizing God’s presence altogether.

Maybe that is part of why this verse feels so important to me right now.

Not because I suddenly have all the answers.

But because I am realizing how easy it is to stop noticing God when the world keeps teaching us to call everything coincidence.