Most of us don’t wake up expecting miracles. We don’t expect seas to part, or storms to fall silent at a word. For many of us, life feels ordinary—steady, sometimes heavy, often routine. So when we read about “signs and wonders” in the Bible, they can feel far away… almost like they belong to a different world.
And yet, quietly, many of us still find ourselves asking:
“God, are you still at work like that today?” There’s a story often told about John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement. He had been encouraging people to pray for the sick—to step out and simply do what we see Jesus doing. At one gathering, someone came forward for prayer. Wimber prayed. And nothing seemed to happen. Afterwards, someone asked him, "why?" He didn’t try to explain it or tidy it up. He simply acknowledged, with honesty and humility, that he didn’t know—and that God did. And then he carried on and prayed for the next person. That, in many ways, captures something important.
We are called to pray. We are invited to step out. But we are not the ones in control. Sometimes people are healed. Sometimes they aren’t. And we learn, slowly, to live in that space—trusting God, staying faithful, and continuing to pray.
Holding two truths without losing heart
It’s important to say this clearly and honestly:
even today, there are those who experience dramatic signs and wonders—and there are real stories of healing, of unexpected breakthroughs, of moments that can only be described as God intervening in powerful ways, reminding us that He is still present with us and still at work.
For some of us, this is very real. We’ve prayed for people we love—and nothing seems to have changed. And that can be a painful and difficult place to sit. We don’t dismiss either reality. We hold them both with honesty. Many faithful believers walk with God for years and never witness something dramatic or extraordinary. And that can raise quiet, sometimes painful questions:
Am I missing something?
Is my faith not enough?
Where is God in my life?
If that’s where you find yourself, you are not alone—and you are not lacking. And even here, Scripture gently reminds us that God is at work “in all things” for those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
Learning to notice God in the ordinary
Perhaps the question isn’t whether God is still working. Perhaps the question is whether we have learned how to notice Him. Because often, God’s work in our lives is not loud or dramatic. It is gentle, patient, and sometimes easy to miss.
It can look like:
•the strength to keep going when you thought you couldn’t
•a moment of peace in the middle of struggle
•a relationship slowly beginning to heal
•a quiet nudge that leads you in a better direction
These moments are easy to overlook. But they matter. And the danger for us is this:
if we are always looking for the spectacular, we may miss God at work in the small.
When you don’t see what you hoped for
At times, it can feel confusing. We read the stories of Scripture—burning bushes, miraculous healings, remarkable moments—and we wonder why our experience feels so different.
It helps to remember that even in the Bible, signs and wonders were not constant. They appeared at particular moments—when God was revealing something, establishing something, or calling people back to Himself in unmistakable ways. They were never the whole story.
They were signposts. And sometimes, we find ourselves praying for something to change—and it doesn’t. Paul knew something of that tension too. He asked, he pleaded, and the situation didn’t lift in the way he hoped. Yet he discovered that God’s presence did not leave him:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
What signs and wonders are really pointing to
When we look more closely, we begin to see that signs and wonders were never about spectacle. They were about revealing God. In Exodus, they reveal His power and authority. In the Gospels, they point to who Jesus is. In the early church, they confirm the message being preached. They invite people not just to be amazed—but to trust.
Praying boldly, trusting quietly
So where does that leave us today? We find ourselves holding two things together.
We still pray for healing.
We still ask for breakthrough.
We still long to see lives changed.
Because Jesus is able.
Because He is compassionate.
Because He is still at work.
But as we look for the big things, we also learn not to overlook the small. Because it may be that in our searching for the extraordinary, we miss the quiet ways God is already present—steady, faithful, and closer than we realise.
A gentle invitation: see differently
So perhaps today, instead of asking, “Why don’t I see what they saw?”
We might begin to ask something quieter:
“What might God already be doing, that I’ve not yet noticed?”
And we hold that tension carefully. We keep praying with expectation, trusting Him with what we cannot see, and learning to notice His quiet work among us. Because sometimes faith simply looks like trusting God when we can’t see what He’s doing—
“faith is… assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).
Because wonder has not disappeared. It may just be quieter than we expected… and closer than we think.