Does God Still Give Us Signs?

The other day I was on the cell phone talking to my friend and co-author of our book, If I Only Had…Following God’s Path to Your Security.  Catherine had been praying about whether or not she was supposed to join our Pearls of Promise team and we were discussing that as well as a Bible study we are writing.

We continued our chat well after I arrived at my glamorous destination, the grocery store, so I eventually told Catherine I needed to go on in since I had been sitting in the car and the fruits and vegetables were waiting for me.  Catherine asked, “Which grocery store are you at?” I told her, and as it turned out, she was also sitting in her car at the SAME supermarket parking lot.

When we saw each other inside, we had a good laugh over the fact that we could have been talking face to face if we’d known we were gabbing a few yards from each other!

As she reflected on the “coincidence” Catherine later realized it was God’s way of telling her the two of us were on the same path with the same destination, and that it made sense to join Pearls of Promise as Creative Director.

But did God really give Catherine a sign?

Some would argue that God did not, based on Matthew 16:4 where Jesus tells the Pharisees and Sadducees, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” He puts an exclamation point on that statement by immediately walking away after he said it.

When I first saw that verse, my thought was, “I will never ask God for a sign because I don’t want to be labeled wicked! I found myself muttering, “I want God’s direction but I’m not gonna ask for a sign; nope not me, I don’t need a sign.”

However, when you peruse the entire passage, you realize the Pharisees and Sadducees had missed countless miracles of God working through Jesus. He had just fed four thousand with seven loaves of bread and a fish. Prior to that, he healed countless people with disabilities who responded by praising the God of Israel, once they were whole again.

Weren’t those signs?

According to the MacArthur Bible Commentary, the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted “a miraculous work of cosmological proportions, like the rearranging of the constellations” something more than a yawner like casting out a demon, which they had just witnessed.

They missed the signs!

That’s why Jesus was so upset, and probably threw up his hands when he walked away.

So the answer to the question, “Does God still gives us signs?” is “YES!” However, a sign may not come in the package you imagined. It’s important to be open to God’s creative billboards.

What about you?  Do you believe God still gives us signs?