“Do you believe in miracles?”

It’s been 45 years since Al Michaels asked that question in the final seconds of Team USA’s dramatic ice hockey win over the Soviet Union.

Paris has the Louvre and the Mona Lisa, the British Museum in London houses the Rosetta Stone, and Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis” plane hangs in the Smithsonian. Here in Colorado Springs, we have the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum and it includes one panel of the Daktronics scoreboard that hung over the ice in Lake Placid Fieldhouse.

History has a beautiful way of coming alive in archival displays. The Olympic Museum is an inspiring place to visit. It’s a home to heroes and features monuments of great achievement. I was 7 on that February night in 1980 and remember sitting on a warm radiator cover in our living room watching the end of the game. I don’t remember Michaels talking about miracles back then, but I think a lot about them now.

In a broken and bruised world filled with lots of hurting people hungry for hope and healing, we need miracles.

Most theologians define a miracle as a divine, supernatural event unexplained by natural forces. By that strict definition, American ice hockey players beating the Russians wasn’t a miracle. But it was a pleasant surprise, a shock that shook the sports world. When it comes to athletic upsets, that single event has few rivals, so we call it a miracle.

Saint Augustine had a more comprehensive take on the subject of miracles, and one that not only makes a whole lot of sense to me, but also makes sense of a whole lot of other wonders and mysteries, too. “Miracles,” wrote the bishop of Hippo, “are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.”

The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know. The more I read, the more books and articles I discover that I’ve not yet read. And the more I see and try to figure out in this world, the more assured I am that God is always working, and sometimes even more feverishly and fervently when I don’t see Him working at all. All I see is not all there is.

My buddy Steve Pugsley needs a miracle. If you’re a praying person, please remember him. The retired, decorated Colorado Springs Police officer and bomb squad technician is battling Stage 4 metastatic colon cancer. He’s on his 35th round of chemo but continues to get out every day to walk on the beach and play softball. “Don’t count the days,” says Steve. “Make the days count.”

But in typical Officer Pugsley fashion, his mind isn’t on himself, but on others. Broaching the subject of the miraculous, he recalls his days on the force here in the Springs.

“I’ve seen and been part of miracles,” he reflected.

“The first time I administered Narcan to a clearly dead person who was overdosed on meth, and then watched them quickly return to life, was one of the most amazing things I’d ever experienced.”

It wasn’t the last time, either. Along with his colleagues, Steve also administered CPR and stopped severe bleeding. “How many family celebrations and special times would not have happened if we had not acted?” he reflected.

God performs miracles, but He can use His people on earth how and whenever He wishes to accomplish the supernatural. Other times it’s transcendent.

Back in 2013, the Vatican officially recognized the healing of Colorado Springs’ Luke Burgie as a miracle after the family requested prayer from Sister Evangeline Spenner and Sister Margaret Mary Preister at Mount Saint Francis. The boy’s undiagnosed stomach illness as a 4-year-old in 1999 stunted his growth and caused rapid weight loss. Doctors were unable to medically explain his spontaneous recovery.

One of the most thrilling verses in the Bible comes from the writer of Hebrews: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

That we’re surrounded by angels should comfort and instill in us a fearless courage, a spirit of boldness and a resolve that all will be well and anything is possible. No matter what you’re facing, don’t be shy or reluctant to ask for a miracle. Answered prayer might well be closer than you think.

Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email Paul@PaulBatura.com or on X @PaulBatura.