by Lee Strobel
INTRODUCTION
Investigating the Miraculous
Everyone had high hopes for Benjamin after he finished third in his class at a predominantly black high school and scored the highest SAT ranking of any student in twenty years from a Detroit public school.
He could only afford the ten-dollar admission fee to apply to one college, so he chose Yale University and was granted a full scholarship. He thought he was pretty hot stuff—until the end of his first semester.
Ben was failing chemistry, a prerequisite in fulfilling his dream of becoming a physician. Everything depended on the final exam. But he wasn’t ready for it, not by a long shot.
That evening, he prayed. “Lord, medicine is the only thing I ever wanted to do,” he said. “Would you please tell me what it is you really want me to do?”
He intended to study for the exam all night, but sleep overcame him. All seemed lost—until he had a dream: he was alone in an auditorium when a nebulous figure began writing chemistry problems on the blackboard.
“When I went to take the test the next morning, it was like The Twilight Zone,” he recalled. “I recognized the first problem as one of the ones I had dreamed about. And the next, and the next, and the next—and I aced the exam and got a good mark in chemistry. And I promised the Lord he would never have to do that for me again.”
Ben went on to achieve his goal of becoming a physician. By age thirty-three, he became the youngest director of pediatric neurosurgery in the country, performing pioneering operations at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He separated twins conjoined at the brain, performed the first successful neurosurgery on a fetus, developed new methods of treating brain stem and spinal cord tumors, and was awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
A 2014 poll ranked Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. as among the ten most admired people in America. He even made a bid to become president of the United States, achieving front-runner status in the Republican primary for a season. All because a dream helped him pass a chemistry course nearly fifty years ago.1
What do you think? Was this a coincidence? A tall tale exaggerated to promote a political career? Or a miraculous intervention by God?
* * *
In Equatorial Africa, far from pharmacies and hospitals, a woman died in childbirth, leaving behind a grieving two-year-old daughter and a premature baby in danger of succumbing to the chill of the night. With no incubator, no electricity, and few supplies, the newborn’s life was in jeopardy.
A helper filled a hot water bottle to maintain the warmth desperately needed by the infant, but suddenly the rubber burst—and it was the last hot water bottle in the village.
A visiting missionary physician from Northern Ireland, Dr. Helen Roseveare, asked the orphans to pray for the situation—but a faith-filled ten-year-old named Ruth seemed to go too far.
“Please, God, send us a water bottle,” she implored. “It’ll be no good tomorrow, God, the baby’ll be dead; so please send it this afternoon.” As if that request was not sufficiently audacious, she added, “And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she’ll know You really love her?”
Recalled Roseveare, “I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, ‘Amen’? I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything. The Bible says so, but there are limits, aren’t there?”
The only hope of getting a water bottle would be from a parcel sent from the homeland, but she had never received one during the almost four years she had lived there. “Anyway,” she mused, “if anyone did send a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I live on the equator!”
A couple of hours later, a car dropped off a twenty-two-pound package. The orphans helped open it and sort through the contents: some clothing for them, bandages for the leprosy patients, and a bit of food.
Oh, and this: “As I put my hand in again, I felt the . . . could it really be? I grasped it, and pulled it out. Yes. A brand-new rubber, hot water bottle!” said Roseveare. “I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could.”
With that, little Ruth rushed forward. “If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly too!” she exclaimed.
She dug through the packaging and found it at the bottom of the parcel: a beautifully dressed doll. Asked Ruth, “Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she’ll know that Jesus really loves her?”
That parcel had been packed five months earlier by Roseveare’s former Sunday school class. The leader, feeling prompted by God, included the hot water bottle; a girl contributed the doll.
And this package, the only one ever to arrive, was delivered the same day Ruth prayed for it with the faith of a child.2
A mere twist of fate? An embellished yarn? Or perhaps a miracle?
* * *
Duane Miller’s greatest enjoyment came from preaching at his small church and singing songs of worship. It wasn’t just his livelihood to lead a Baptist congregation in Brenham, Texas; it was his passion, his calling, and his source of joy and satisfaction.
When he awoke with the flu one Sunday morning, his throat was like sandpaper and his voice would “catch” on words. Each syllable was painful to speak. The flu soon disappeared, but his windpipe remained ablaze and his voice reduced to a raspy whisper. His throat felt constricted, as if someone were choking him.
For all practical purposes, Miller’s voice was gone. No longer able to preach, he resigned from his pastorate. He eventually landed a government job researching records—a position he then lost because his inability to speak meant he couldn’t testify in court about his findings. Insurance stopped covering his treatments, and he faced thousands of dollars in medical bills.
“For the first time in my life, I felt utterly useless. My income, my future, my health, my sense of well-being, all were suddenly beyond my control. It was a terrifying and humbling experience,” he said.
Over three years, he was examined by sixty-three physicians. His case was even scrutinized by a Swiss symposium of the world’s leading throat specialists. The diagnosis: the flu virus destroyed the nerves of his vocal cords, rendering them limp. When Miller asked about his prognosis for recovery, a doctor told him, “Zero.”
Despite Miller’s protestations, his former Sunday school class at First Baptist Church of Houston prevailed on him to speak. A special microphone was used to amplify Miller’s soft, hoarse, croaky voice—and the class agreed to endure the grating sound because of their love for him and his teaching.
Ironically, his text was Psalm 103, where the third verse reads, God “heals all your diseases.” Miller said later, “With my tongue, I was saying, ‘I still believe that God heals,’ but in my heart, I was screaming, ‘But why not me, Lord?’”
He went on to the next verse, which says the Lord “redeems your life from the pit.” He told the class, “I have had and you have had in times past pit experiences.”
As soon as he said the word pit, the choking sensation disappeared. “Now, for the first time in three years, I could breathe freely,” he recalled. “I heard a gasp from the crowd, and that’s when I, too, realized my voice had come back. I could hear myself!”
His stunned audience began to clap and cheer, shout and laugh; his wife, Joylene, broke down in tears. “I don’t understand this right now,” Miller stammered—with a fresh, new voice.
The dramatic moment of Miller’s recovery had been captured on audiotape, which went viral. Subsequent doctor examinations showed his throat looks like it never had any problems; in fact, against all odds, even the scar tissue has disappeared.
Said one physician, “Even if I could explain how you got your voice back by coincidence—which I can’t—I could never explain what happened to the scar tissue.”
Today, Miller is pastor of Pinnacle Church, serving the Cedar Creek Lake area of Texas. Ironically, he also hosts a daily program on a Dallas radio station
—yes, using his voice to tell others about the God who he is convinced still performs miracles.
“You see, God didn’t just restore my life,” he said. “He amplified it.”3
At his website, you can listen to the tape of when his voice came back.4 Then ask, “Is this a supernatural act of God? Or is it better explained as some sort of spontaneous remission that only coincidentally occurred while he was quoting the Bible on healing?”
* * *
Jennifer Groesbeck, a twenty-five-year-old single mother studying to become a medical assistant, was driving home on a darkened Utah highway in 2015 when her car suddenly struck a concrete barrier and careened off the road.
The red Dodge sedan landed upside down, partially submerged in the icy waters of a river, not visible from the roadway.
Fourteen hours later, a fisherman spotted the wreck and called police. When four officers arrived, they spotted an arm through the car’s window, but the severity of the wreck argued against anyone surviving such a horrific accident.
That’s when they heard a woman’s voice calling out softly, “Help me, we’re in here!” The words were as clear as day. Shouted back an officer, “Hang in there! We’re trying what we can!”
Now motivated to push harder, their adrenaline fueled by the hope of a survivor, the officers plunged into the near-freezing waters, which at times reached their necks, and used their collective strength to pull the water-laden vehicle onto its side.
What they discovered shocked them. Groesbeck had been killed on impact. But in the backseat, they found an unconscious eighteen-month-old girl, who had hung by her car seat upside down all through the frigid night, the top of her blond hair just inches from the water.
The rescuers formed a human chain to bring the child to safety, where she was briefly hospitalized and later released in good health.
But that voice—where did it come from? Not from Groesbeck, who was long deceased from the crash. Not from the child, who was unconscious—besides, said a rescuer, it was definitely the voice of a woman.
Officer Tyler Beddoes said he wouldn’t have believed what happened if the other rescuers hadn’t heard the voice too. “That’s the part that really sends me for a whirl,” he told reporters. “I’m not a typically religious guy. It’s hard to explain—it was definitely something. Where and why it came from, I’m not sure.”
Many people didn’t hesitate to call it a miracle. But could there be another explanation? Perhaps rescuers mistook the sound of a breeze through the trees. Or maybe the deceased mother somehow momentarily regained life at just the right instant to give the police the extra adrenaline they needed. Or possibly it was a product of the overactive imagination of the officers, whose senses were heightened in the crisis.
A miracle? Beddoes isn’t sure, but given the circumstances, even this skeptical cop conceded, “That’s what you think of.”5
* * *
There are more than a thousand people in the British auditorium. The lights are bright, and old-time gospel music swells from the organ. The healing evangelist speaks in an unknown tongue; he casts out demons; he touches people on the face and they instantly fall backward. There is an unmistakable sense of euphoria and anticipation in the room.
The evangelist, who seems to be responding to some private word of knowledge, begins calling out diseases that are being healed. Soon people line up to testify that their ailments have miraculously disappeared. Someone says their shortsightedness is cured; another reports that a persistent ringing in his ears has been alleviated; a third says his sprained ankle has suddenly been restored to full strength and he can walk again without pain.
The evening has the feel of a charismatic healing service, but with one major difference: the “healing evangelist” is an atheist.
Derren Brown is a former Christian who is now one of England’s most famous illusionists. “It is his unparalleled ability as a ‘mentalist’ that sets him apart,” said Christian commentator Justin Brierley. “Using a mixture of suggestion, ‘cold reading,’ hypnosis and plain old trickery, Brown has the ability to make people believe in God, miracles and the power of prayer.”
Brown professed faith in Jesus as a youngster and attended a Pentecostal church, but he became disillusioned when he felt manipulated into speaking in tongues and when his Christian friends cautioned him against his foray into hypnosis. He said his decision to come out as gay wasn’t a factor so much as his mounting disbelief in the resurrection of Jesus.
Performance after performance in his stage show Miracles, Brown would produce an exciting and stimulating atmosphere. “I thought that if I could create some type of adrenaline, then someone with a bad back is going to tell me that they can’t feel the pain,” he explained. “It’s a chemical thing.”
What’s more, he added, “They would also hit the floor when I touched them on the face because they have a certain expectation. When you go to these events as a believer you know what’s supposed to happen. So I show clips of people doing that. By the time they come up on stage, there’s a similar expectation of what they’re supposed to do.”
Brown insists he isn’t trying to dissuade people from faith. Citing nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, he says Christianity can be useful as a folk myth if it helps people make sense of their lives.
“But it has to be presented as real in order for it to work and have a real effect,” Brown said. Then he admitted, “That might sound very patronizing, of course, if you believe it to be real.”6
Do these “fake miracles” discredit other miracle claims? Or because this atmosphere doesn’t resemble how most healings take place, is Brown’s show irrelevant to the question of whether some miracles are actually genuine?
* * *
Recently, I was chatting with a former colleague from my days as an atheist and legal editor at the Chicago Tribune.
“You were the last person I ever thought would give up journalism to go tell people about Jesus,” he said. “You were one of the most skeptical people I knew. If I told you the deli down the block had a good sandwich, you wouldn’t believe me until I produced a dozen restaurant reviews, plus a certified chemical analysis of the ingredients from the Food and Drug Administration.”
That’s an obvious exaggeration, but, yes, my background in journalism and law did tend to amplify my naturally doubting personality. The newsroom, with its prevailing attitude of scoffing skepticism, was an ideal environment for me. And yet, ironically, it was my skepticism that ultimately drove me to faith in Jesus.
That’s because my wife Leslie’s newfound belief in Christ provoked me to investigate the historical underpinnings of Christianity. I was confident that my strategic objections would end up undermining the entire religion and rescue her from this “cult.”
To my dismay, the data of science (from cosmology and physics to biochemistry and human consciousness) convinced me there was a supernatural Creator, while the evidence from history satisfied me that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected from the dead, confirming his identity as the unique Son of God.
The inexorable conclusion that Christianity is true prompted me to put my trust in Christ and later leave my newspaper career to spend my life telling others the story of his atoning death on their behalf.
However, my skeptical nature didn’t entirely dissipate. Did I believe in miracles? Yes, of course, I was convinced that the resurrection and other miracles occurred as the Gospels reported. But that left open the question of whether God is still in the miracle business today.
I did agree with pastor and author Timothy Keller, who said, “There is nothing illogical about miracles if a Creator God exists. If a God exists who is big enough to create the universe in all its complexity and vastness, why should a mere miracle be such a mental stretch?”7
Theologically, I was not in the camp of the cessationists—Christians who believe that after the apostles died and the New Testament canon was established, signs and wonders ceased and we shoul
dn’t seek them today.8
On top of that, I had seen God’s mysterious work in my own life. For example, one day during prayer, I felt prompted to get an anonymous five-hundred-dollar cashier’s check and send it to a young woman in our church who was struggling to recover from a life of abuse and financial difficulty.
Leslie prayed about it and felt precisely the same urging. We knew this wasn’t something conjured from our own minds because that amount constituted almost all of our bank account at the time. Specifically, we felt compelled to mail the check so it would arrive the following Monday.
On Monday morning, before the mail’s delivery, the young woman called in an absolute panic. “Please pray for me,” she pleaded. “My car broke down Saturday afternoon, and they said it will cost almost five hundred dollars to fix. I just don’t have the money. I don’t know what to do!”
“Okay,” I said, trying to conceal the buoyancy I felt inside. “Leslie and I will pray for you.”
That afternoon, she received the anonymous check—and Leslie and I experienced the joy of being the answer to someone’s prayers.
Coincidence? I suppose it could have been if it were the only such head-scratching incident we have experienced in our Christian life. To me, it fit an ongoing pattern of God listening and supernaturally responding.
And yet . . .
Feeling Conflicted over Prayer
As a young staff member at Willow Creek Church near Chicago, I was asked to substitute for a pastor in presiding over a monthly prayer session for people seeking healing from God. About a hundred people gathered in our chapel as we put James 5:14 into practice: “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.”
My role would be to offer a general prayer on behalf of everyone assembled; for those who then wanted individual prayer and anointing, several of our elders were on hand afterward.
I have to confess that I felt conflicted. Much of the prayer came easily—asking for God to provide wisdom to the physicians, to comfort those who were suffering, to relieve pain, to strengthen hope and faith, to guide the hands of surgeons, and so forth. All of that, of course, was important.