The Architecture of Miracles: Faith, Agency, and the Wave
I am a firm believer that things happen every day that simply cannot be explained away by science, reason, or cold logic. Those singular moments that feel like genuine magic? I like to think they are.
I believe in miracles.
Full stop. I am a firm believer that things happen every day that simply cannot be explained away by science, reason, or cold logic. Those singular moments that feel like genuine magic? I like to think they actually are. I’m writing this because I believe it’s vital context for the philosophy I’m about to lay out.
This connects deeply with a post I wrote last time about Life’s Little Sprinkles… you can read that here:
Life is defined by “Big Moments,” but they don’t always show up in the way people think.
They come in all shapes and sizes. Sure, sometimes it’s those huge monumental shifts... like marriages, deaths, moving into a new home, or a massive career leap.
Other times, it’s the quiet flickers of grace: the barista telling you the coffee is on the house, a coworker remembering your favorite snack and grabbing an extra bag from the vending machine, or the traffic suddenly clearing the moment you merge onto the highway.
These moments don’t exist in a vacuum.
The good and the bad compound; they stack.
We all live through distinct seasons, and you know them when you’re in them. There are months where you feel invincible and months where you feel invisible. If life moves in these rhythmic waves, it stands to reason that there is something behind it. There would need to be an external driving force, a cosmic momentum if you will.
For a long time, understanding that force was a hunger I couldn’t satisfy. I was obsessed with the “Why” and the “When.”
But eventually, I had to get real with myself and adopt a mindset that felt contradictory but necessary: You have to act like no one is coming to save you, even if you don’t fully believe it.
Some say the universe, some say it’s mother nature, personally, I think it’s God. Now, for those of you who are anti-church and anti-religion PLEASE stick with me here. I am very much someone who deconstructed and reconstructed my faith on my own terms. I promise I am the furthest from preachy.
In the beginning...
I grew up in the church. I grew up loving God, and I still do.
My relationship with Jesus is still central to who I am. But not central to what I talk about.
I suppose I’m in that camp of people who love the cause but have grown weary of the performance and harm of the church and the words they twist.
Nowadays, I am a believer of just being the best version of me that I can be and showing practical love through my actions. And then if people ask me why, I’ll share.
What I realized back then, however, was that the more I obsessed over the external force (in my case, God) the more I failed to understand the very nature of the faith I claimed to have.
I’ve started to look at things differently now.
I mean think about it for a second. If a parent, for example, has a relentless pursuing faith in his children, that faith is an investment in that child’s agency and not their helplessness.
I’ve realized that if we spend our time constantly looking at the horizon for a rescue boat, we forget how to swim. My reliance on an outside force used to be rooted in a kind of underlying fear. A “please don’t let anything bad happen” or “if i don’t do this right i’ll be punished by God” mentality. But that isn’t faith, it is quite literally a hostage situation. (Also it’s super not helpful for those who have intrusive thoughts and the like.)
Now, I aim for coexistence with fear.
Essentially, if we spend more time preparing ourselves for the waves, the “bad” seasons won’t feel quite as devastating.
When you strengthen your own spirit and take ownership of your preparation, you honor the potential you were gifted.
Does that take God out of the equation?
For some, sure. For me? Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually. It made me hyper-aware of the things that I believe God has done to show his presence and power in my life.
The miracles will still happen. The grace will still fall.
I still royally screw things up every day; I am human, and you are too. Remind yourself of that, say it out loud the next time you feel that you have let yourself down, or if the barrage of bullshit doesn’t seem to stop coming your way: “I am a human, I am allowed to fuck up.”
The question you then have to ask yourself when the next tide comes in is simple:
Will the wave swallow you whole, or have you prepared yourself to ride it?
“I’ve experienced that sometimes the most miraculous moments come after long stretches of unseen faith and persistence.
Some (often science led folk) say miracles are simply things that you don’t yet know how to do. There’s something in that. Whether they are done by someone with more experience, intelligence or capability than you, or whether that’s from some higher power… they are often great to see. And we can be inspired by them, which surely isn’t a bad thing.