One of the things my mother took to her grave was her desire to have a burning bush experience with God that she felt never came. For those who may be reading this that do not know what a burning bush experience is, according to the Bible, when Moses went up on Mount Sinai to wait upon God for direction for his people who were growing impatient, he encountered a burning bush that God spoke through and gave him direction. People like my mother have often equated this story to when they’re looking for their own sign and direction from God. What I’ve learned on my journey is that sometimes the signs from God are a lot more subtle.
In Moses situation, the sign of God’s presence was abundantly clear. But for my mother, it was never clear enough. In the last few years of her life, she held steadfast to her belief that God needed to give her a burnish bush experience before she would change anything in her life. In the meantime while she waited, she drank excessive amounts of alcohol that essentially led to her death. Looking back at her life, there were many signs that I felt God presented to my mother. The greatest of which came a year before she died when she fell down the stairs drunk and broke parts of her face and had to be on a breathing apparatus for awhile. Sadly, after she went through a small sober period after that, she returned to her same stance of looking for that big sign and eventually went back to alcohol for the answer. A year later, she fell down the stairs again and broke her neck, dying instantly.
Why is it that we look so much for these huge signs like a burning bush? I’m guilty of it as well. In the past three years of my life I have gone through so much pain and anguish on a spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical level. On many days, I’ve asked God for a sign to know I’m on the right path. Like my mother, my brain has quite often wanted the same thing my mother sought. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t secretly desire to have my own burnish bush experience. But somehow I’m beginning to think that God communicates on a different level these days.
Before all the physical pain became constant in my life, I believe there were many signs that God was sending me to wake up and take a different path. My closest friends and family at the time were often warning me of what they were seeing transpire and how sick they felt I was becoming. I didn’t listen. One of the toxic people I was hanging out with back then crashed my car and also pointed a gun at me and I still didn’t listen. Parts of my body occasionally had great physical pain that suddenly came on but I still kept on living in those toxic behaviors. At one point, all of my body began hurting and this finally grabbed my attention. It did get me to change directions and alter the course of my life for the better. It has made me wonder though if the pain was the only sign that God could resort to so as to get me back on track.
Today, I’m still dealing with a lot of pain but my stance on it is a little different. I look at it as my body’s process of healing. But I will admit that there are many days I still do wish for some great sign from God, such as hearing a booming voice, to show me that good days are on the horizon. Regardless, I think God’s presence is in our lives all the time except we don’t look hard enough for it. Most times, I’m guessing we all take matters into our own hands and try to do what we think is best for ourselves when those signs don’t come in the way we think they should come such as it was in my mother’s case. Today, I wait patiently upon God for a lot of the healing that really is out of my hands, but in doing that, I also remain open for any small signs of God’s presence. Things such as animals coming up close to me and staring at me for awhile, insects including dragonflies and butterflies landing on me, double rainbows suddenly appearing in the sky in front of me, or beautiful bird feathers showing up somewhere around me on most days are taken as examples of God’s signs now.
There is a theory that I have now with how God shows signs in our lives. When any of us aren’t listening and are off doing whatever it is we feel like doing, maybe the signs are a lot more direct and can only come through things that will grab our attention such as major health issues, financial hardships, or huge fallouts with friends and loved ones. And quite possibly, could it be true that when we get on track and are on the path that God wants us to be on, the signs get a lot more understated and it’s all about just remaining alert and being open to them?
My favorite visual representation of the craziness in how people can get when looking for a sign from God can be seen with Jim Carey in the movie Bruce Almighty. During it, he asks for a sign from God and then sees a “Caution Ahead” sign in front of him that he ignores. He then asks God a little more directly and a truck suddenly appears ahead of him filled with “Stop”, “Caution”, and “Wrong Way” signs. Yet he continues ahead and ignores them. He grabs his cross hanging on his rear view mirror and says a prayer while he runs over a bump in the road which forces him to drop the cross to the floor of the car. At which point, he grabs it, looks up, and then runs into a pole, stopping his forward progress altogether.
Maybe signs from God are a lot more like this and a lot less like the burning bush experience that Moses had? Maybe too many of us didn’t listen to the signs that God once gave us in a very direct way? While I really don’t know the answers to either of those questions, I do know that a sign from God can probably come in infinite ways. And maybe the most important thing is for each of us to just pray to remain open to them in an way they may come.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson