BY GRENVILLE KENT

ACKING THE CAMRY OUT OF THE garage, I heard a baby's voice screaming and felt my wheels crunching little bones. I braked too late and ran to the back of the car, and there was Marcus, our 16-month-old, crushed and dying in blood.

Then I woke in fright.

I looked around the dark bedroom at my calmly sleeping wife, the digital clock redly glowing 3:19 a.m. Sabbath morning. I slowed my breathing and silently asked God to care for my family, then turned over; if I didn't sleep, my congregation might during my sermon that morning.

I woke up late, quickly prayed, reread the sermon over breakfast, dressed, and sprinted to the car, ready to back it out and load the children while Carla prepared the truckload of bottles and baby gear.

Sitting with the car in reverse and the handbrake off felt like a familiar scene, and I remembered my dream. But I had locked Marcus into the dining room 20 seconds before. I checked the mirrors and looked out the back window. Nothing. Still I sat there arguing with myself, my foot on the brake. Maybe my dream was from God, maybe mere parental fear. I looked at my watch—then got out of the car anyway.

There behind the back wheel was my little boy. He was playing with Bear and his red car. Seeing me, he shouted excitedly, "Dadda! Car! Car!"

I scooped him up for a hug, though he wasn't the one who needed it.

How on earth did he get there? Through two closed internal doors, out through the locked front door and screen door, then across the porch and in under the opening Roll-a-Door without me seeing him. I didn't know he could do that Houdini routine, let alone in half a minute.

I clipped him into his seat with a rather mechanical thanks to God, seated his sister, and backed the car out. When his mother joined us, I told her what had nearly happened. I was emotionally numb—the classic male coping mechanism. I told my church about it, and they gasped, but I still felt nonplussed, as if I was telling someone else's story from a book.

I don't see miracles every day. I want a faith that is rational, not the flipped-out "God sends me messages in my tea leaves" variety. Don't get me wrong; I believe that God can "break" natural laws—the Bible describes miracles, and I've seen a few. I believe that God is active, but that most of God's gifts arrive quietly through natural systems the Creator originally set up, so I thank God for my food even though it doesn't fall from the sky like manna.

With Marcus, though, I couldn't find a natural explanation. My subconscious could have just popped up that dream, I guess—but on that night? What are the chances?

I can only conclude it was a miracle. Call it a minor suburban miracle, but it shows me there is a God who sees the future and loves my son. My mind was convinced, and my heart finally caught up in a Kleenex moment of relief and gratitude.

But miracles are slippery things. They raise as many questions as they answer. Why us, in a world where so many children suffer? We have praying friends who have suffered terribly with a child dying young or, perhaps even worse, growing up to live a destructive and tragic life. How do I tell this story to them? How did God choose when to intervene? And what if God had not chosen to do a miracle that day? Would I still trust?

Questions for Reflection or for Use in Your Small Group 1. How should modern Christians relate to dreams? What biblical considerations might guide our thinking on this issue? 2. Have you had an experience in which you felt God spoke to you personally? 3. How might we tell such personal stories without creating misunderstandings or raising negative questions?

Miracles don't remove all doubt. You can eat loaves and fishes and see healings—and still walk away from the Teacher. You can eat manna and enjoy shade from a cloud that follows you around every day—and stay lost in rebellion against prophetic leadership. When people demanded miraculous signs before believing, Jesus refused, saying that the only sign they would see would be His teaching and His death (see Matt. 12:38-40; John 6:30-36).

The gospel may be the only sign you ever get. Paul observed that in his day "Jews demand miraculous signs, and Greeks insist on 'wisdom,' but we preach Christ crucified—a scandal to the Jews and nonsense to the Greeks; but to those who are called (both Jews and Greeks), the cross shows Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:22-24, paraphrased).

But the gospel is sign enough. God's greatest intervention in history was His own Son crushed and dying in blood.

I won't let my inability to explain theodicy in the entire universe stop me from enjoying God's clear interventions, or from trusting God's kind omniscience. Or from loving the gospel that saves me and my family at such savage cost to the Father's Son, His other Self. Unthinkable love! "God did not keep back His own Son, but allowed Him to die for us all. After that, wouldn't any other gift be mere small change?" (Rom. 8:32, paraphrased).

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Grenville Kent is a pastor at the Kellyville Adventist Church in Sydney, Australia.