Is God still active in the world today? When faced with this question many people will respond in one of two ways. The first group will say, “No, if God exists He is not active in the world today. He just wound the world up like a clock and walked away and left the world to its own devices.” The second group will say, “Of course God is active in the world. He performs miracles every day.” Both groups are wrong. The first group falls into the same error as the Sadducees of Jesus’ day who were told, “You are mistaken not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29). In 1 Corinthians 10:13 the apostle Paul said, “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” For God to make a way of escape He must be active in some way. Also James tells us that “prayer … avails much” (James 5:16). For God to answer our prayers, He must be active. The second group fails to understand the nature of miracles. Something is not a miracle simply because we don’t understand it. Miracles are events that are obviously supernatural in origin. They are often referred to as “signs” (Mark 16:17, 20) or “wonders” (Hebrews 2:4) for this reason. God is still active in the world today but not in an obvious, miraculous way. Today, God works through His providence, using the natural order of things to bring His will about. In Genesis 45:5 Joseph was able to look back over all that he had suffered over the years, from the time he had been sold as a slave by his brothers (Genesis 37:20) to his advancement to the second most powerful office in Egypt, and see God’s hand at work. Joseph was able to tell his brothers “do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” We cannot say with certainty that God is working in our lives to lead us in a certain direction or to cause things to happen in our lives. Even so, our minds should be open to the possibility that God is working behind the scenes in our lives. As Mordecai told Esther in Esther 4:14, “who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”