Beyond the need for signs
I love signs. I’ve asked God for signs. I designated unusual occurrences as signs. Why? Why do I like them; why do I need them? Usually it’s because I think something, and I then go looking outside myself for validation of what I think. For all our culture’s emphases on individualism and “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” it sure doesn’t nurture our ability to think for ourselves. Nationalism tells us to put the U.S.A. before all other peoples, rich or poor, right or wrong. The current brand of Christianity tells us it’s through Jesus Christ alone that we obtain salvation, thus giving us the idea we can look down on everyone who isn’t this brand of Christian. Where I live, being a Republican is the high ground; being a liberal is flirting with evil and just plain not the way to think.
Because our culture is so loud with what we should believe, I for one have struggled with believing something counter-cultural. But, thank God, there are many who do have the courage to begin wrestling with what they come to see as conflicts — what they’re perceiving within themselves is just not what others would have them believe. When we finally decide to focus on this conflict, we’ve arrived at a potent time in our growth, and we must proceed cautiously.
Kids, of course, like to buck the system, don’t they? And they need to! It’s part of individualism. They go on “out there” and usually find their particular form of confrontation with the culture — say in insisting they can pass a test without studying — is actually not a good idea. Their response in an ideal world is to draw back and pay a bit more heed to the advice given, and save their confrontations for other matters and other times (when the abstract brain, for example, is formed).
But, let’s take one of us, an adult, a survivor of chronic suffering, experiences that have accumulated and worked to make us angry, rebellious, fearful, doubtful, suspicious. With all of that, try honing into what our own gut says, what intuition says, without even broaching what God within us says! It is no easy task. Thus, our need for, our desire for, our love for signs.
We get to a point, however, when those signs just aren’t gonna come. We can’t keep depending on them to validate what we hear within. We have to learn to trust our own thinking, our own listening. Now, if what we think we hear violates laws, spiritual or civil, or harms ourself or others, we must be wise enough to question and seek counsel. But, there comes a time when we just must stop questioning and concede to what we’re sensing. We must do this both for peace and for discovering the full weight of the belief, the thought, the proposition itself.
The weightiest of these is this: God exists. God cares deeply for you. God is active in your everyday. Our world is dripping with the truth of this. It is described in the abstract, in the bold, in the silent, and in the cacophonous. How I sense it may not be how you do. But this I do know: I had to concede before I learned more. I had to proceed once the signs stopped. Only then, could my mind begin to grow beyond the need for signs.
Reflection
How often do you doubt what your gut tells you? What fears are behind this doubt?
What beliefs have you depended upon signs to help you accept?
Prayer
God, I am not comfortable with myself or with You. How can I be? I was not taught to believe in myself, and now I’m supposed to believe You dwell within me, You speak within me? How can I ever sort that out? Perhaps You will help me with signs at first; but, I know, I need to just concede. I need to begin focusing within, believing that I will hear You within my heart, my mind. I have questions. I have accusations! I have so much emotion! All in due time, yes. You are here, within, above, below, to my left and to my right. I am embraced by You. Bring me to this belief. Amen.
