This is a photo of a small miracle I captured the other day—a rosebud that had recently formed on my rosebush.

“Give me a miracle, and I’ll believe.” These words God has probably heard from most of us at some point or another. The truth is, our very existence is a miracle. If God gave us a miracle (what the average person considers to be a miracle—some event defying the laws of nature) every time we asked for one, then it wouldn’t seem very miraculous anymore, would it? He won’t just throw around these types of miracles every day because they of course would lose their value and meaning. Luckily though, God does not need to defy the laws of nature to show us He exists—nature itself is wonderful, amazing, complex; nature is miraculous!

One of the ways a miracle is defined is by its degree of improbability. Let’s talk for a minute about the improbability of the world we live in.

According to Stephen Hawking, if the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by one part in a hundred thousand million, it would have all collapsed, and we would have no universe. On the other hand, if it had been greater by one part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for planets to form. The existence of our universe today is still dependent upon that equilibrium. The explosion of the Big Bang was just strong enough for carbon to form, and if it were any stronger, that carbon would have all been converted to oxygen. If there had been a variation within a millionth of a part, we would have no earth and no life.

The truth is, our universe, our earth, and even life itself is all highly improbable and absolutely extraordinary! If you’re searching for miracles, remember you don’t have to look very far. Small miracles are all around us. The more we take notice, the more we realize those small miracles are bigger than we could ever imagine.