Intermittent miracles

One of the puzzling features of the Christian life is the uneven and unpredictable distribution of divine interventions. Why does God perform a miracle for one Christian but not another? Why does God answer the prayer of one Christian but not another? 

Cessationism and continuationism represent two competing paradigms of miracles. According to cessationism, either there are no postapostolic miracles or certain kinds of postapostolic miracles don't happen. 

According to charismatic theology, or at least the dominant version I'm aware of, the reason miracles aren't more common isn't due to God's will but our lack of faith or holiness. A human impediment blocks miracles. If we had more faith, if we were saintly, miracles would be routine among Christians. 

That's analogous to people who are color-blind. They receive the same external stimuli as people with normal vision, but due to their defective eyesight, they can't process the signals. It's there, all around them, but they can't perceive it because the receiver is malfunctioning. There's a breakdown at the receiving end of the transmission, and not the signal. 

Likewise, some animals have more than 5 senses. They can perceive things we can't. So the impediment lies in us. An internal filter that screens out the signals. The stimulus is there but the percipient lacks the necessary equipment for the signal to register. 

There's a grain of truth to that insofar as miracles are more likely to happen to people who believe in them. Atheists are generally trapped in a vicious circle. They don't pray. They don't believe in God. Their friends are atheists. So they don't move in circles where miracles or answered prayer happen.

However, that's not a complete explanation. Two equally needy, desperate Christians will pray for a miracle–one may get it and one won't. 

Here's a paradigm with more explanatory power. The Christian pilgrimage is a journey through life into death and the afterlife. But that raises two questions: how do we know that we're headed in the right direction? What if we're lost? Unless the road or trail has occasional signs, we may become disoriented. 

In addition, how do we know the destination even exists? Is there gold in them thar hills? Or is this the fabled gold at the end of the rainbow? 

What if it's a legend or tall tale, like Spanish explorers on a quest to discover the fountain of youth? A map that leads to nothing?

Miracles happen often enough, to enough believers, to encourage us that we're on the right road, that the destination is real. Like unexpected signs along the trail, around a bend, over a hill. Initials carved in a tree trunk. An old campfire. Intermittent signs to indicate pilgrims who went ahead of you. 

There are multiple lines of evidence for Christianity. Some kinds are more accessible to certain people than others.