Finding signs of God, but are they real?

By Kathy Berken
On Deck

When I was in college, I walked into a small, old, dusty used-book store and within a minute, a small, old, dusty book literally fell from a shelf in front of me. That paperback on world religions changed my narrow image of God from Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” to one more personal, more expansive, more mysterious. I took that moment as a sign from God that I needed to broaden my understanding of the Divine Mystery.

Years later when I was in emotional turmoil, I visited the gift shop beneath a church built into a hill in Sedona, Arizona and as I was turning the bookrack, “The Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux” literally fell onto the floor. Again, I took that as a message from God that hope exists even in times of trial.

When I see a feather on the ground or a red cardinal on a branch or a rainbow in the sky, I believe these are signs from God that return me to the center of my being, my soul. They are yet more ways for God to communicate with me about an angel in my midst or a loved one who has died or the real possibility of hope in troubled times.

But are they really signs from God? Let’s dig deeper. Signs can easily be God’s communication to us that we need to deepen our faith, strengthen our hope or extend our love because our omnipotent God is capable of anything. I never doubt the potential of God’s power or question God’s activity in the universe. I truly expect God to be God.

I have met people — including myself — who ask for, look for and interpret signs to their own liking. This becomes an issue for us people of faith when we forget that God is in charge. When we witness an event that feels supernatural — such as a book falling off a shelf or a feather lying on the path — we have a few ways to discern that. It could be a simple coincidence offering a reminder to learn more about God or of the presence of angels or the answer to a prayer. It could also be a profound encounter with the Divine.

When our grief overwhelms us, for example, God’s mysterious love and mercy may align the timing of the cardinal on the branch with our being at the window. When we say that the cardinal IS our loved one who has recently passed away, I think that keeps our experience too small and falls short of a deeper spiritual encounter.

Many of us have had mystical experiences that involve nature, animals and people. At the exact same time that my dear friend John died some 30 years ago, I happened to see a man on a street corner that looked and acted exactly like him. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I have always believed that the look-alike went there just as I stopped at that corner as a sign from God that John and I were always going to be connected, even after death. I truly felt the presence of God that night. The experience was so powerful that I knew there is so much more to our life than what we experience through our senses. God’s universe is beyond our wildest imaginations, our most extraordinary dreams, our most awesome fantasies.

The rainbow was Noah’s sign of God’s faithfulness. Jesus’s healing miracles were signs of God’s mercy. Jesus’ feeding the 5,000 was a sign of God’s generosity. People in Scripture looked for and found signs to bolster their faith, hope and love. They were right to discern those signs as coming from God rather than anything they could have invented on their own.

 (Kathy Berken is a spiritual director and retreat leader in St. Paul, Minnesota. She lived and worked at L’Arche in Clinton  — The Arch from 1999-2009.)