Following the signs to God?
Have you ever wanted for God to give you a sign that He is real? Or maybe, you’ve heard someone else talk about God in a personal way and wondered if you missed the memo?
If you’ve ever wondered how you can know if God is real or wanted Him to speak to you, I think it is helpful to know where to look (and not to look) to find the signs.
First, a few places not to look:
External circumstances.
Our feelings.
Other people’s opinions.
When we look at all the brokenness and pain in the world outside of us and we are honest about the chaos inside of us, it can be overwhelming and normal to wonder whether we can trust God or not.
While God can certainly get our attention in lots of different way, these places are very unreliable signs to look to know what God is like or what He wants for our lives.
And…Jesus invites us to look to a better place to find the signs of God.
The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish. John 1:14, MSG
Instead of looking to the world around us or the truth inside of us to find the signs of God, Jesus invites us to look to Him.
The Gospel of John opens in epic fashion, claiming the Word of God that created everything in the universe came into the world to speak to us—to make Himself known.
The Word of God was not written on a sign, a set of principles, or given to us as a philosophy, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…in the person of Jesus Christ.
He claims to be the Word of God to us, the sign of God we can always trust. Instead of wondering what God is like, Jesus came to show us who He is because He wants us to know Him…and He wants to know us.
“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:9-13, ESV
When we look to Jesus as the sign from God we can trust, we find the security, resiliency, and courage to face even the worst circumstances and feelings we have in this world.
When we let His light into our darkness, we find freedom, healing, forgiveness, and a greater love than anyone in the world can ever give us.
Instead of living as children of the culture, we become children of God whose lives become a sign to show others the way to the light.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said,
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
May we look to Jesus as the One we can always trust, and may our lives become a sign to awaken the world that He is real.