The Sign

I’m a big fan of signs, particularly the clever kind. You know, the ones that really get your attention, like the following recently seen on billboards around the country, “’We need to talk.’ --God”. It’s short and effectively gets the point across about how deeply interested God is in every detail of our lives. Like a loving parent, the most trivial details of our everyday living are sheer joy to our Heavenly Father. He loves us with a radical love, beyond anything that we as humans can comprehend. In fact, nothing we do can separate us from His love, not even death!

I didn’t always feel this way about God. In fact earlier in my life I was furious at him for a long time. My parents had divorced when I was a baby, my mother died when I was just 15, and along the way I discovered that my father was an alcoholic. I was raised by my non-English speaking grandmother and the generational divide between us seemed unbridgeable. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, not even cousins, as both my parents were also “only’s”. There weren’t many people I could talk to, and as unlikely as it may seem now (to those of you who know me :)), I was painfully shy and socially awkward. I felt incredibly alone and betrayed by circumstances that had seemingly happened beyond my control. Where was God in all this anyway and why did he have to pick on me?

Through my parents’ eastern European heritage I was brought up Roman Catholic. I attended a Catholic elementary school, a Catholic high school, and subsequently a Jesuit university. The Catholic faith was deeply steeped in my upbringing. The notion of guilt for my sins and making restitution for my wrongdoing was something taught nearly every day in my school years, and I spent a long time trying to figure out what grave sins I had committed to warrant such “punishment” from a God who was clearly meting out his judgment on me. In the end I was more angry than interested in figuring it out. I stopped going to church and sunk deeper into a destructive lifestyle of drugs and promiscuity. It was pure rebellion; I was through with being told what to do.

Then I met someone who said he was a “born-again” Christian. I had heard of these types – weird folks who lift their hands and close their eyes in worship. They carried their Bibles with them to church and said openly they “prayed for me.” Huh? I didn’t understand, much less believe, their sincerity.

I had questions for my friend and lots of them. What’s “born-again” and how is it different from being Catholic? You know you’re going to heaven? How? I didn’t know at all where I would end up, and I thought it a bit arrogant that my friend was so certain about his eternal destiny.

He invited me to church and it was wildly different from a Catholic Mass. Some people did lift their hands and close their eyes during worship. The music was more energetic than the traditional hymns I’d grown up with, and the people seemed so happy. I couldn’t understand it at the time – be happy about what? Serving a judgmental God who seemed to be hovering and waiting for the next misstep so he could whack me again with some tragic life event? I had no other view of God except as a stern judging father. The distance between my view and this Christian view seemed too great, and there didn’t seem to be a way to bridge the two together.

Then I saw the sign. It was big and easy to read. It was along I-44 just after the Fenton exit in St. Louis County. At first I thought it was a legitimate highway sign because it was the same size as others, but this one was different. It was handwritten and it contained a Bible verse that I was familiar with:

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in him would not die but have eternal life.” John 3:16

I thought how nice – and how clever – that someone made a handwritten sign and somehow got away with it being posted on a public road, visible to everyone driving by. I drove on to my destination without giving it another thought.

Two weeks later I was on the same road, headed south towards Springfield to see a client. The sign was there – still. Amazingly no one had taken it down. I looked at it again, but this time I read the words out loud:

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him would not die but have eternal life.”

He so loved that He gave...

To say “I got it” would be a severe understatement. The thoughts and realizations that came at me all at once were almost too much. I was sure my brain was about to explode. God loved me that much that He gave His Son! Jesus went to a criminal’s death an innocent man – he took my place! Indeed, if I held up my past mistakes and detours as a comparison to God’s perfect standard, I deserved God’s judgment, but instead I received His unmerited favor – His grace. It was over; my eternal destiny was assured, a done deal. Jesus died the death I deserved so I could live forever with Him.

I had to pull over to the side of the road. I was sobbing uncontrollably. In a matter of seconds my view of God had radically changed from seeing Him as a rigid judge to a loving and deeply committed Father who longs to be with His children, and not just on Sundays. The relief of the struggle being done washed over me like a spring rain; gratitude flooded my heart. Suddenly the reasons why I did good works flowed with new meaning and renewed motivation. Good works were the fruit of my faith, no longer the root, as I had previously believed.

My life has never been the same. When you answer the call of God on your life, you can look back and see where He’s been at work all along. No tragedy or mistake is ever wasted with God; He is able to use it all and I can point to countless examples in my own life.

My prayer for you today is that you open your heart to the radical and life-changing love that God has for you. He loves you more than you can imagine and you matter to Him more than gold or all the treasures of the earth. That the God of the Universe would provide any way at all for a flawed mankind to be reconciled to Him is beyond human understanding.

Did I say I was a big fan of signs? :)