Looking for the Ten-Second Miracles

A couple years ago, my husband and I ran into one of our favorite coffee shops for a caffeine fix. I expected to leave with a vanilla latte in hand. I did not expect to be reminded that God does miracles in His time, in His space.

I really did not expect to find this reminder on a package of coffee. And I especially did not expect this illustration to come from a play in a football game.

See, while we were waiting at the counter for our drinks to be made, I spied a package of “Skol Vikings Blend” coffee near the counter.

We live in Minnesota, where the Vikings are our hometown football team, and that coffee shop chain had created a special blend in their honor. We are a football family. We watch games every week without fail, because my son absolutely loves the game – loves it – and the Vikings are his team. He used his own money to join the Vikings Kids Club, roots for his beloved Vikes no matter what the scoreboard says, dresses in jerseys and eyeblack whenever possible, and plans to be a Viking when he grows up. He’s brought his sisters into loving the game and has big plans for teaching his little brother how to play when he’s a little bigger.

My boy has turned me into a fan too — especially of the family time watching the game brings. All that in mind as I stood at the coffee shop counter, I thought it would be fun to bring home some “football coffee,” so we bought the bag of beans along with our lattes and headed back to the car to complete our errands.

Then right there in the passenger seat of our minivan, I teared up as I read the description on the side of the package:

Just like a good cup of coffee, the Vikings have a special way of bringing us Minnesotans together. As we cheer on the team to rock ’em, sock ’em, and fight fight fight each week, we learn that when us Northerners come together as one, there’s not much we can’t accomplish. And that ten seconds is plenty of time for a miracle.

That last sentence, right on the back of the bag of coffee beans, stopped me right in my tracks.

In 2017, during a game — the final ten seconds of the game, to be exact — Minnesota Vikings player Stefon Diggs caught a twenty-seven-yard pass and ran it to the end zone for a touchdown as the clock ran out. The announcer went absolutely wild (as did the stadium), and he excitedly hollered that it was “a Minneapolis miracle.” The title and clip of the play went viral — you can see the “miraculous” play here. I vividly remember this game, mostly because my husband whooped so loud that our football-loving son got out of bed and came downstairs, and then we let him stay up and watch the replay.

Ten seconds is all it took for this play to make record books, to get millions of hits on the internet, to be called a miracle, to change history for a few folks.

And isn’t that so reminiscent of the true miracles of God?

How long did it take for Jesus to do His miraculous form of multiplication with a few loaves and some fish? How about when He swapped water for wine? With crowds gathered in both of those locations, hungry and thirsty, I can’t imagine that Jesus took a long time to make these miracles happen. People were waiting.

Sometimes God keeps us waiting. Other times, all He needs is ten seconds.

Okay, so I’m not actually comparing the “Minneapolis miracle” to those listed in Scripture, but it did remind me to take pause and remember how many times the miracles in life have taken very little time — when the car stops just in time to avoid being hit by an oncoming car, when I catch my toddlers’ hand just before the van door closes on it, when the diagnosis comes in and they say it was caught in the nick of time, when the phone call is made minutes before the decision comes through and the conversation changes the final decision. You know what I mean? How many times have we cut it too close for comfort and whispered, “Oh, thank you God!”?

And that’s just the protection kind of miracle.

When I raise my eyes from this computer, I see my four children who are absolutely miraculous in their own right, especially considering the years of infertility and miscarriages that came before and alongside them. All people, really, are total miracles. So very many things have to happen correctly in order to fully develop a human being, with all neurons firing, bodies forming, hearts beating. Each person is a miracle, right there in plain sight.

And then to look outside my window and see the blue sky, the frosted trees, the wonder of snowflakes — each one entirely unique. To hear music pouring from my speakers, artists gifted with both word and voice. To enjoy the transformation coffee goes through as the beans are ground and hot water is poured through. To watch the way ingredients come together, changing from eggs and flour and butter into warm cookies (anyone else think of that scene/quote from Friends? “Ten minutes ago this was all just ingredients!”) To hold a loved one’s hand.

There are more miracles in plain sight, beckoning to be seen.

So today, I raise my mug to you. Here’s to the ten-second miracles all around us. May we see them for ourselves. May we be them for one another.