A few years ago, I was in the car with a friend on the way to get coffee.
The shop we were headed toward sat in the middle of a busy downtown street, the sort of place where open parking spots feel like gifts. As we got close, we started scanning for free spaces, but the day was busy and we looked halfheartedly, both of us mostly content with the likely reality of parking a few blocks away.
We came into view of the shop, one car in a line of cars, no open spots in sight.
Then, just a bit ahead of us, a car pulled out of the perfect parking space – the spot immediately in front of the shop. Caught by surprise, we both pointed toward it, and when the driver in front of us passed it by, my friend actually whooped with joy. We peeled right in, my friend twisted the keys to turn off the engine, and we sat in a moment of grateful silence.
And then my friend turned to me and said:
“God really said ‘I’ve got you!’ to us right there, huh?”
I thought that was a bizarre thing to say.
I haven’t been able to forget it.
I’m 29 years old and I’ve never heard the audible voice of God.
But I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise. Because I’ve believed in God since I was old enough to speak, and for just as long I’ve wanted to hear him speaking to me. When I was a kid, I did everything I could to give him the right opportunities.
You probably know the things: Breathing deeply, sitting quietly, and trying to listen for as long as I could manage without being distracted. (So about seven minutes.)
Flipping the Bible open, putting my finger down on a random verse, and eagerly reading it with the expectation that God would speak to my immediate decision. (And being confused when he said, “You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.”)
Spinning through radio stations to see if any of the songs said exactly the words I wanted to hear. (And trying to figure out if Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” applied to my high school relationship.)
Do these kinds of things for long enough, and you’ll either convince yourself that everything is a sign or grow blind to the possibility that anything could be. I fell toward the latter. As an adult, I’ve adopted skepticism as my standard, and it’s felt a lot like wisdom.
But sometimes I think it might be the opposite.
Last year I was sitting in traffic on the way to the store, drumming impatiently on my steering wheel and idling behind a gray Toyota Prius, when my eyes drifted to the sticker plastered on the car’s rear bumper.
“JESUS SAVES!” said the sticker.
It was a ham-fisted shout – red letters, bold font, all caps. It felt obnoxious and it actually made me kind of angry. I thought to myself, “Does this person really think that sticker will convince anyone that Jesus saves?”
The light didn’t change. I kept drumming on the steering wheel. And then I read it again.
“JESUS SAVES!”
And I started to cry.
I am far from being an expert in theology. I don’t know how God speaks.
But I think that if Jesus really can save – if he actually is the Word who spoke creation into being and if he really has been raised from the dead to be Lord of the world – then God must know about every time I’ve sat listening in silence, every time I’ve flipped open my Bible to put my finger on a random verse, every time I’ve spun through radio stations hoping to hear his voice.
If it’s true, then he must have known that I would be stuck in traffic behind a gray Toyota Prius with a bumper sticker shouting that Jesus saves.
Maybe everything is a sign.
I’m not saying that every random verse is an edict on your immediate circumstances or that if Lady Gaga comes on the radio it’s proof you and your girlfriend should break up. Mostly, that kind of stuff feels too much like arrogance, like assuming you know everything that someone else is thinking, like putting your own words into God’s mouth. God is a person, after all, and that’s not how relationships work.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable claiming every open parking space as a spoken word from God – but I do want to get better at listening.
That’s what my song “Signs” is about. It comes out this Friday; here’s the pre-save link if you want to mark it on Spotify. I’m excited for you to hear it (and if you want a sneak peek / pretty rough acoustic version, here’s a video I recorded of me playing it in my living room last week).
As always, thanks for reading.