Talking Balls and Minor Miracles

In the aftermath of the Spain Portugal semi-final, I read in the newspaper reports somewhere how Cesc Fabregas, who scored the winning penalty considered it to be a miracle.

“I had a premonition, an intuition that things were going to come off and that life had reserved something for me as nice as this. When I stepped up to take the penalty I said to the ball that we had to make history and it shouldn't let me down. I talked to the ball four years ago [when he scored the winning penalty against Italy] and it didn't let me down.”

It made me think how that’s how most of us live our lives. In the hope of minor miracles that will help make the difference in our lives between failure and success. The spin of the lottery balls in the tumbler, a sudden attack of temporary blindness on the policeman holding the speed camera, or the way an inanimate object might wing its way from my foot and bend and twist into the back of the net. We find ourselves, whether we have faith or not, offering up instant and urgent prayers to some superior being to intervene “please don’t let it happen!” or “please let it be so, this time!”

And the tragedy of all of this, is that in all of this quest for minor miracles  to happen at a time of need, we ignore the Major Miracle that makes everything happen in the first place. For in Him we live and move and have our being. He is before all things, by Him all things were created, and in Him all things hold together. ** Men will scoff at the idea of divine intervention on the grand scale through the saving power of Christ on the cross giving us life for all of eternity, while at the same clutch at the straws of a talking ball that will somehow help me towards the winners podium on a football field.

Now, I have no idea about Cesc Fabregas’s religious affiliation or spiritual outlook, but that kind of vague superstitious belief that something somewhere is out there looking out for me, and will intervene on my behalf, if I’m lucky, or am kind to animals or something, is so so common. So if you’re ready to believe in talking balls, why not consider something miraculous that is a lot more rational, and with hugely more significant benefits.

** Acts 17:28,  Colossians 1:17