Do you believe in miracles? I do. Do you sometimes wonder if the event in question is actually miraculous or is in fact simply the result of random chance? I do. I would like to take an in-depth look at this subject of miracles vs chance. It is much longer than the articles I typically write but I couldn’t really convey what I feel that I need to convey with anything shorter. It is my prayer that you will be encouraged through what I have to say here about my personal experiences concerning this subject.
If you prefer listening to reading, I did a podcast on this same topic a couple of years ago. You can find that here: Podcast: Was It God?
Neil deGrasse Tyson, a prominent astrophysicist, reveals his prospective concerning this issue in his book entitled “Starry Messenger”, in chapter 5, “Risk and Reward”. Mr. Tyson describes a thought experiment, in which one thousand people are told to flip a coin. Those who’s flip comes up heads are told to remain standing, while the remainder are told to sit down. If one keeps going with this experiment, the number of people left standing will be roughly halved each round, from 1,000, to 500, to 250, and so on. After 10 rounds, only one person will remain standing. This person will get most, or all, of the attention. They may feel very lucky or perhaps very special, as though a benevolent presence was watching over them. In actuality, they simply flipped heads, ten consecutive times, which is something that is unlikely but, statistically, will happen to one person in a thousand most times you do this experiment. Therefore, it is unlikely but certainly not miraculous. Mr Tyson draws a parallel between this experiment and the types of things that many people call miraculous. Mr. Tyson does not believe in miracles. He, and many others like him, believe that many of these seemingly unlikely one in a thousand type things happen every day in a world that has billions of people in it and, because statistical probability is poorly understood by most people, some of these people call these chance events “miracles”..
I am a Christian. I am a believer in and follower of Jesus, the Christ. I have submitted to Him as Lord and Master and I trust in Him to take care of me. Sometimes, I ask Him for direction or material provision. Sometimes, He does not do what I ask. However, sometimes He does. When He does, often, the timing of His answer or the method of His answer leaves no doubt to me that what happened was His doing. Some of these answers to prayer are what I would call miracles. As I have discussed, many people would say that unlikely things happen every day and they would dismiss what I call miracles as coincidences. I would agree that unlikely things do happen every day and that many of these things are, in fact, coincidences. However, if you have a long enough string of unlikely enough coincidences, you eventually reach a small enough probability so as to be functionally equivalent to an impossibility. At that point, you are no longer dealing with a string of coincidences. If not coincidences, then what? Let’s talk about that.
I am going to describe a series of events that have happened in my life, most of them connected to encouraging and/or empowering me to do the work of this ministry. Each of these events would be unlikely to have happened by chance but it would be impossible to say, with any accuracy, exactly how unlikely. For each event, for purposes of this discussion, I will assume that the odds of what I describe happening by chance is one out of one hundred.
With that said, let’s start with the first story.
Many years ago, when I first started trying to set up speaking engagements as part of my Christian ministry, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say. I knew that I wanted to share my Christian testimony and some things that I have learned in my Christian walk but I didn’t yet have everything down on paper. However, this is something that I felt led to do and so I went ahead and put out a request to some churches to let me speak. I was sure that this was something that I was being led by God to do and so I was confident that at least some of my requests to speak would be granted. I began to pray about what God would have me to say and I started putting that down in written form. It ended up being much longer than I had anticipated.
I realized that speaking at such length would be very difficult without notes. At that time, I thought the only way for me to discretely use notes when speaking would be for the notes to be in Braille. I thought the best way to accomplish this was with a braille display, which was a device which translated the information from the screen of a computer or smart phone into braille. They were very expensive and I hadn’t been able to afford one.
I got the word that I was going to be allowed to speak at First Baptist Church, in Huntingdon, TN, which is the first place at which I publicly shared my Christian testimony. I was very thankful but also very nervous. I began to pray and this is basically what I said.
“God, I am thankful for this opportunity. I am also very scared. You know that speaking is not my strength. I know that I don’t deserve it but, if you could somehow arrange for me to get a braille display before this speaking engagement, I would really appreciate it. If that doesn’t happen, I will still do it, because I believe that this is of you and that I am doing what you want.”
About an hour after I said that prayer, I got an email, from a man that I had never met in person, who lived hundreds of miles away, in Ohio. He was also blind. He and I had met through a business transaction a few years previous. I didn’t know him very well and so he certainly had no way of knowing that I was seeking a braille display. His E-mail basically said “hey, I just bought this braille display at a charity auction and I don’t really want it, could you use it for anything or do you think that you could find someone who wants it?” He didn’t give it to me but he sold it to me at about one-third what it was worth and he let me pay for it over several months, which is the only way that I could have gotten it.
That’s the story of the braille display. I believe that this would be an unlikely coincidence but something like this happening coincidentally is possible. We will assign the previously discussed probability of one out of one hundred.
Now, on to the second story.
About a year after I was called into Christian ministry, in the Summer of 2015, the ministry wasn’t bringing in much money and we were struggling financially. I have always said that this ministry exists, first and foremost, to reach people for Christ and, though I do need to make a living, it is not about money. Well, in July of 2015, things were pretty tight. I was working hard in the ministry, with a few speaking engagements and doing a lot of work to prepare for the release of “View Finder”, my second book. When looking at my cash flow projections for the month, it looked like the month was going to end in the negative. We didn’t live extravagantly and I could find nothing to cut out to help the budget that month. I didn’t know what we were going to do.
I truly did believe that I was doing what God had called me to do but I was getting discouraged and I prayed for God to help me to cover the bills for the month. At that time, I had never solicited donations for the ministry. All ministry income came from speaking engagements and book sales. However, the next day, I received a check in the mail, from someone who I did not know but had heard me speak. The note that accompanied the check basically said that he wanted to help to support my ministry and the check was for a thousand dollars, which was over twice what I needed to cover the remainder of the bills for the month.
That’s the story of the check. Now, we have two unlikely events, each with an assumed probability of one out of one hundred. One hundred multiplied by one hundred equals ten thousand. So, the odds of these two events happening, back to back, can be assumed to be one out of ten thousand.
Now, on to the third story.
A short time later, one of our heating units went out. When a technician looked at the unit, he told me that the heat chamber had cracked. The heat chamber on this unit cost $1,600, not including the labor to change it. The original heat chamber had a ten year warranty. That’s 120 months. Guess what month this was? It was toward the end of the middle of month 120. The technician told me “If this had happened less than two weeks later, it would have cost you over $2,000 to fix it”. I didn’t have $2,000 and God knew it so He took care of it in a way that only He could have. That is what I firmly believe.
That’s the story of the heat. This event, taken by itself, could still be a coincidence. However, we are now up to three such events happening, back to back, each of which has an assumed probability of one out of one hundred. If we do the math, as I described previously, the odds of this series of events happening by chance is now down to one out of one million.
OK, on to the fourth story.
God opened doors which allowed me to sell my books at the 2016 Mid-South Men’s Bible Conference, which was held every February, by Bob Pittman Ministries, at Faith Baptist Church, in Bartlett Tennessee. This conference took place on a Friday evening and then most of the day on Saturday.
A lot of people talked to me and took cards and fliers. In total, I sold 8 books. I only sold 2 of those on Friday night. I knew I might not sell a ton of books but I thought I would sell more than that. By Saturday morning, I was getting discouraged.
At this point, though the books had been very well received by those who read them, book sales had been slow. Similarly, though many people had told me that they were touched by my testimony, getting speaking engagements had been very slow too. It had been like pulling teeth to get some churches to let me come speak. My writing and speaking appeared to be having a big impact on those who were exposed to it but exposure was relatively low.
On the Saturday morning of the conference, I was getting discouraged, not just with the weekend but with the ministry. I began to pray about that and this is basically what I said.
“Lord, I thank you for this ministry that you have given me. For almost two years now, I have never really questioned that I am called to this ministry by You. But right now, I’m wondering, if that really is true, shouldn’t I be getting more results than I am? I can’t reach people for You if they don’t read what I write and if they don’t hear me speak. Online book sales are virtually non-existent. Most book sales are at speaking engagements and those speaking engagements are few and far between. Lord, I really don’t think that I have made up this call in my mind but I need some encouragement. I want you to show me again that I truly am called by You to this ministry. Getting churches to let me come and speak is like pulling teeth. If Your hand is on this ministry and if it is of You, today, once, I want the opposite of that to happen. I want someone to ask me to come share my testimony, without me having to talk it up and without them having to think about it. I want it to just happen. In almost two years of doing this, nothing even close to that has ever happened and, if it happens today, I will know it is of You. If it doesn’t happen, I’m not going to quit because, deep down, I do truly believe that this is of You but, like I said, I need some encouragement. Please, Father, do this for me.”
Saturday morning, just before lunch, I had sold 3 books. A few people had looked at the books but most weren’t buying. Several people had talked to me and taken cards and fliers but few outwardly showed more than just passing interest. Then, a man came up to my table and started a conversation. He said that he pastored a church in Bradon, Tennessee. I shared, or started to share, the 30 second explanation of the books and the fact that I also sought to give my testimony at churches. He didn’t let me really even get started with my explanation.
“I am going to call you about coming to give your testimony at my church.”
“Oh, that’s great. I would love to have the opportunity. To get more information about that, you can take a flier and you can -“
He cut me off.
“I will take a flier and a card and I am about to buy both books. I don’t need to talk to you any more about coming to give your testimony. Sometimes the Spirit just reveals things and He has told me that you are to come. I don’t know why but that’s OK. Perhaps, after I have heard you speak, then I will know why. Regardless, He has said that I am to have you come. I will call you to schedule it.”
Now then, that may not seem all that remarkable to you but let me tell you something. Back then, with most churches, even if I could get them to talk to me, they had to think about it and pray about it for quite a while before they would agree to have me come. Then, it generally took another good while before they would put me on the schedule. It almost always took months of praying and talking and scheduling before a church would let me speak. Many of them just brushed me off. Never before had a pastor just said “I want you to come”, right on the spot. He knew nothing of my testimony, other than a one sentence summary and, when I tried to give him more information, he cut me off. This was the total opposite of the way it usually happened. I prayed for this specific sign of His hand working and He gave it to me.
That’s the story of pastor Dennis Golden. Yet again, this event, taken by itself, could certainly be a coincidence. However, we are now up to four such events happening, back to back, each of which has an assumed probability of one out of one hundred. The odds of this series of events happening by chance is now down to one out of one hundred million.
Now, on to the fifth story.
Several years ago, we had a Suburban with well over 300,000 miles on it. It had ben a very good vehicle but, as it had gotten older, it had more and more problems and we didn’t have the money to keep spending on getting it fixed. One morning, my wife called and told me that, when she had dropped off our youngest child at school, when she had put the Suburban in gear, it took at least 10 seconds before it would move. This was the latest sign of possible impending transmission trouble. When I hung up, I prayed for the Suburban to last until God saw fit to provide something else and that He would provide something else.
Right after that, within maybe 30 minutes, a man at our church called me and this is basically what he said:
“Last August, I got a new vehicle and I kept the old one as a spare but I have found that I don’t really need a spare. If you could use it, you can have it. It needs new shocks and struts but, if you want it, before I give it to you, I will put new shocks and struts on it. I have already put in new plugs and plug wires.”
He did as he promised. About a week after that conversation, he signed over the title, with no money changing hands.
That’s the story of the car. Yet again, this event, taken by itself, could certainly be a coincidence. However, we are now up to five such events happening, back to back. The odds of this series of events happening by chance is now down to one out of ten billion. I was going to stop here because ten billion is more than the number of people on Earth and I thought this was sufficient to prove my point. However, I think I will do one more.
So, on to the sixth story.
I continued to do the work that I felt that God had called me to do. God opened doors and I walked through them. The ministry was not formally organized, in terms of legal structure. It was just me, with my wife helping me, doing the work. As time passed, the ministry slowly grew. Eventually, we reached the point that I felt that incorporation as a nonprofit might make sense. However, I wasn’t sure. For one thing, beginning to operate as a corporation would increase the complexity of operating our little ministry. Also, forming a nonprofit corporation was not cheap and we did not have the money to spend on all the legal and filing fees. Still, I felt that this very well may have been what God would have had us do and so I prayed about it. I felt God impressing on me that I should ask an attorney friend of mine for advice concerning this. When I asked my friend about what I was thinking, he told me that he had recently felt God impressing on him that we should do this exact thing and that, in fact, he had been about to contact me when I contacted him. He had been about to contact me to offer to do all the legal work required to form the corporation, for free, as well as pay all the required filing fees.
That’s the story of nonprofit incorporation. Yet one more time, this event, taken by itself, could certainly be a coincidence. However, we are now up to six such events happening, back to back. The odds of this series of events happening by chance is now down to one out of one trillion. I could tell more stories but I will stop here because one trillion is more than one hundred times the number of people on Earth and I think this is sufficient to prove my point. Given these numbers, you could ask every single person on Earth and there is an outstanding chance (greater than 99%) that not a single one of them would have experienced this same series of events.
So, if it wasn’t luck, what was it? Did you notice a pattern to my stories? In each case, just before the unlikely thing happened, I had prayed, to God, about the very thing that then ended up happening. Logically, what appears to have been the source of my good fortune?
At this point, some of you may be thinking:
“You are only talking about the things you prayed for that ended up happening. You are only talking about the unlikely good things that happened. What about the things you prayed for that did not end up happening? What about the unlikely bad things that may have happened? You are just ignoring those negatives in order to make your point. If you aren’t intentionally ignoring them, then you just aren’t thinking about them, and so you are delusional.”
I am very cognizant of those things that could be considered negative and I am not ignoring them. I just haven’t gotten to them yet. So, let’s talk about them now.
Here’s another story.
I was born very prematurely and, as a result of this and some complications resulting from it, I am completely blind. I have what is known as Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). When a baby is born as prematurely as I was, sometimes, abnormal vasculature and scarring will develop in the retina. This did occur in my case and it left me severely visually impaired. Until I was 19, I did have a little vision in my right eye, but it was only about 20/500. Basically, this was just enough to allow me to get around in an area that I was accustomed to without bumping into too many things and I could read print at about 20 times magnification. Then, at the age of 19, I had to have cataract surgery (cataracts are a side effect of ROP) and, to make a long story short, the cataract surgery on the right eye caused complications which set off a chain reaction of 10 major eye surgeries which took what little vision that I had. There is no way to repair the damage to my eyes with current technology.
In my sophomore year of college, when I was 19, I had the surgery that, in the long run, took what little vision that I had. It was not immediately apparent, however, that I would be completely blind as a result of the surgery. At first, the doctors told me that my vision should return. I am a Christian, saved at age 11, and I leaned on God for strength. After all, He had brought me through all of the challenges that I had faced thus far. I prayed for my vision to return but I prayed, above all, for God’s will to be done in this situation. Christians often say this but it is one thing to say it and it is quite another to be truly sincere about it. I found that it can be very difficult to say it and really mean it once you figure out that God’s will and your own will do not coincide. After three or four months and about as many surgeries, with things getting steadily worse rather than better, it became apparent that my vision was not coming back.
My doctor was Steven Charles, who was renowned as the best retina specialist in the world. He said that the combination of complications that had occurred, when taken together, should have been statistically impossible. He said that he had been doing this for over 20 years, that he had done thousands of surgeries, and that he had never seen anything like this. He said “I just don’t understand it and probably would not believe it if you weren’t my own patient and so I saw it happen”.
Though I had struggled to do so, I had continually and sincerely prayed that God’s will would be done in this process. I had the best doctor in the world. Yet, still, despite all this, what should have been impossible happened. I had to accept the hard conclusion that it was supposed to be this way.
Let’s stop and recap.
I told you of a series of events which happened in my life, which most people would consider to be positive. Each of these events, taken separately, was so unlikely to have happened by random chance that, when considering the series as a whole, one must consider it to have been so unlikely as to have been impossible, from a practical prospective, for this to have been simply good luck. If it was not good luck, then what was it? I believe it was God.
Then, I told you of a series of events which resulted in my complete blindness, which most people would consider to be negative. Each of these events, taken separately, was so unlikely to have happened by random chance that, when considering the series as a whole, one must consider it to have been so unlikely as to have been impossible, from a practical prospective, for this to have been simply bad luck. If it was not bad luck, then what was it? I believe it was God.
What? I think that God made me go completely blind? I asked Him to not let that happen. I certainly did not have in mind for Him to intentionally do it Himself. However, I believe that is exactly what happened. You can’t have it both ways. Either God is all powerful or He is not. I believe that He is. Therefore, it is an inescapable conclusion that he either directly causes or at least allows everything that happens in the universe. That does not mean that all negative things are His doing. Many bad things in the world are the result of sinful actions and choices. God does not sin or cause or tempt anyone to sin (James 1:13) and so He has nothing to do with those things. Those things are things that He does not want for us and we would be far better off without them but He will work even those things for the ultimate good in the life of a Christian (Romans 8:28). Though God does not cause the things that result from sin, He allows most of them, at least partially in order to keep free will in tact. I believe that some things that seem negative, that do not result from sin, God directly causes, in order to strengthen us, in order to positively change us, in order to bring us closer to Him, and to allow us to draw others to Him. I believe this is what happened in the case of my blindness.
What am I to take from this? Am I to think that God does not love me or that He is not good? Not at all. The thing is, He is not only good but He is the definition of good. He loves not only me, but everyone else too, many of which do not have a relationship with Him. When He works in my life, He is working things out, not just for what is easiest in the short term and not only for me. He is much bigger than that. He works for the best of all of His children, in the eternal prospective.
When I lost all my vision, what I could not see (no pun intended) is the impact that this would have on my ability to reach people for Him. Much of the hardship I have gone through as a result of my blindness is different than the hardship that many others go through, in terms of the specifics, but many of the basic themes are the same. Therefore, the things I have learned through my hardships can be applied to many people’s hardships, even if their specific hardships are not exactly the same as mine. Also, complete blindness is considered by many to be one of the worst of the physical disabilities and it is a relatively uncommon one. Something about this makes people want to hear what I have to say about my experiences and what God has taught me about His Truth through them. There is a lot more to say about all this but the bottom line is that many people hear me because I am the way that I am that would not hear me otherwise. That is worth me being the way that I am and I have God to thank for that.
So, in closing, I would like to leave you with these thoughts. Coincidences, even very statistically unlikely coincidences, do absolutely happen, every day. In fact, I would say that many of the things that some of us are quick to call miraculous are, in fact, coincidences. However, as I said previously, if you have a long enough string of unlikely enough coincidences, you eventually reach a small enough probability so as to be functionally equivalent to an impossibility. At that point, you are no longer dealing with a string of coincidences. If not coincidences, then what? When that happens, often, I would say you are talking about miracles. If miracles happen in long strings like that, which makes them harder to deny, then they also must happen in individual unconnected occurrences. If miracles do happen then who or what makes them happen? I believe that the answer is God. Nothing else makes sense. And He works even the negative things that He allows or causes for our good. If God does exist and is of such character, wouldn’t you like to get to know Him? If so, please check out the page entitled “The Most Important Thing”, on the Scott Duck Ministries website.
