Most have had that thought before… or maybe even requested that very thing to God.  “Is this a sign from God? I think it was a sign from God.  God, please give me a sign.” Maybe you’ve requested that to God before. Maybe your faith is faltering and you’re needing reassurance.  Maybe you’ve always felt that “nudge” that God is real, but you just need it hammered home… whatever it might be, I think we’ve all heard it.  I LOVE me a good God story.  One of the things that ignites my faith more is hearing miracle stories and not just in the sense of “medical miracles”, but even just simple everyday miracles. I love seeing God show up for his people, especially those who don’t consider God.  I could tell you story after story, but since I’m in a deep writer’s block, I’m thinking I’ll start with sharing this recent God story. 🙂 It’s long, but definitely worth the read… so if you have 15 minutes, read on!

Our most recent big news is that God is moving us to Chattanooga, TN for my husband’s job and while this isn’t what I had planned, I have seen God’s hand at work already.  In early February, my husband was in Tennessee for work, and we decided it would be a great time for us to check out the area and look at neighborhoods.  Given he’d already be there, I would have to meet him on the weekend separately.  David hopped into his Uber ride that Monday afternoon to head to the airport and I quietly prayed over him as I watched him enter the car and drive off.  “Lord, please use my husband to share the Gospel, to share who you are with that Uber driver if he doesn’t know you.” Five days later, I joined David in TN.  We looked at neighborhoods and God gave us an overwhelming peace that this is where He is sending us next, despite my apprehensions.  The trip was a very quick turnaround and we were heading back to Chicago early Sunday morning.  

Now, something specific to note about God is that God loves details.  God is in all the details and we are generally too busy to even notice Him.  This is why I find it critical to be as detail oriented as possible, because when we notice the details, we notice God.  In this story, the little details are important… so let’s back track a tiny bit.  

When we were booking my flight to TN, there were multiple seat openings, so urgency wasn’t necessary at that moment.  A few days later, we went to book the trip and all the seats were taken.  I was frustrated because it meant that David and I were going to be on separate flights home from Chattanooga that Sunday morning.  I tried to remind myself that God doesn’t miss anything and there’s a reason he wants us on separate flights.  We were going to the same airport, both taking off from Chattanooga flying into Chicago, same morning, same time, same airports, going to the same home… yet we had to fly on different flights.  I was annoyed. We got to the airport early Sunday morning to fly back home to Chicago and before we left, I handed our car keys to David saying, “Since you’ll be taking off before me and will get home an hour or so earlier, here are the keys in case my flight gets delayed… that way you can drive home if my flight doesn’t get in until later.” I’ll be honest, I said this with annoyance and a tinge of attitude, as if it were David’s fault we had to be on separate flights.  Begrudgingly, I handed over the keys and impatiently waited to board my flight (since David had already boarded his).  I got onto my flight, ready for takeoff, when I received a text from David saying “Still on the plane. You are going to get home before me 100%. They still don’t know what’s going on. I’m sorry I took the keys.”  That dang car key. I forgot I gave him the key… the key he was going to use to drive the car home in case I got delayed. Spoiler alert: David didn’t get home until almost 8pm that night (and we had gotten to the airport at 5:30 am that morning…).  

I’ll be totally honest, I really don’t enjoy being inconvenienced.  It’s a big fault of mine and something I know I can be better at, but inconveniences feel uncomfortable for me. I don’t like having to change my plans last minute and it makes me feel very “unprepared”, so I think God likes to put me in situations where I have to exercise that muscle of being inconvenienced.  If I want to be used for God’s glory, I need to release that control to Him.  At this point, I’m on the airplane thinking of how annoyed I am that I’ll have to take an Uber ride home.  I realize this is a privileged thing to be annoyed about, but I’m just telling the truth. 🙂  Throughout the flight, I kept bringing it to God… “Okay God, if you’re allowing this, it’s because you have something else planned.  If you’re making it so I have to take an Uber ride… would you please use this ride to share the Gospel with someone?  Would you please enable me to speak about you to whomever I have to drive with?” Conveniently, I had been listening to a podcast episode about a girl who just says “yes” to God and she had been sharing a very cool story about her bringing her Uber driver to Christ.  I prayed,  “Lord, if I have to take an Uber ride, please use it for your glory.  I’m willing.” I prayed that prayer with expectancy and just trusted that God doesn’t miss a detail.  There was a reason David and I were on separate flights.  

I got off the flight, received a text from David saying that his flight had been cancelled and he had to rebook for later that evening… so there was no way he was getting home soon.  Admittedly, I felt anxiety flood me because as social as I am, I really didn’t want to take an hour-long Uber ride home by myself.  I didn’t even have the Uber app on my phone, so I was frantically trying to download it, tried booking a ride, realized the card on file was expired, re-entered a new card, booked a ride-share trip (to save money), cancelled it because I realized I didn’t want to share with someone else, prayed again that God would use the Uber ride and finally booked another ride.  As I entered the Uber ride, I prayed again, “Lord, if you want me to share the Gospel with this man, please use this car ride.” And off we went.  

Only a few minutes into the ride, the driver and I were talking (shocker, I know).  For those who know me, you know talking isn’t an issue for me.  The driver and I were talking about where I had just come from and why I was there.  A simple conversation about life opened up conversation to where my Uber driver was born, where he lives right now, and where he is planning on going in the future.  He was a graduate student originally from India, going to school in America, with intentions to move back to India when he’s done. We talked about the cultural differences for all kinds of things, and it segued into a conversation about faith and beliefs.  My driver shared that he practiced Hinduism and I asked questions about what their beliefs were, what that means, how that looks, etc.  It was so interesting, but the wheels started turning… I could already see how God perfectly ordained the conversation to come about. 

We respectfully asked each other questions about each other’s faith, religious practices, and shared our own experiences. We gave room for one another to talk.  Within that conversation, my driver began to question what I was saying.  

“Do you actually think there is life after this?  How can you know that there is a heaven?… How do you know? Have you been there? Do you know someone who went there and came back?”  

Fair questions.  “Well, I believe with all my heart that heaven is real, but I can’t tell you with 100% certainty that heaven is real, but that’s where faith comes into action.  Faith is believing, even without seeing”.  

My Uber driver replied, “SEE! You don’t know Heaven is real. How can you have faith in an afterlife if you’ve never been? How can you have faith when you don’t fully know?”  

I then responded with “We practice faith every single day with very normal things. Even right now, you’re using faith to stop at this red light.  You don’t know with 100% certainty that the brakes are going to work, but you are pressing your foot down as you come to this red light, with faith to believe that when you press your foot down, the car is going to stop at this red light.  You don’t actually know for sure if it’s going to work, but you have faith that the brakes are working properly and the car is going to stop. I’m exercising faith by getting in the car with you and trusting that you will press the brakes when we come to the red light.  That’s how I am in my faith.  Just because I don’t see heaven or I don’t see God physically, doesn’t mean He’s not there.  I have faith to believe it because I’ve seen the evidence and I’ve seen God’s hand at work in not only my life, but others lives as well.  That takes faith”.  

This was just one of MANY conversations we had about God and faith, but it was so cool to see how God shifted and moved the conversation with not only that, but to experience God speaking through me… because I couldn’t have come up with some of those answers on my own. 

So God gave me the opportunity to share the Gospel.  Answered prayer.  God used the Uber ride… but that’s not it.  My driver asked me if God could give signs that he was real and that Jesus is the only way and to that I answered, “absolutely!” Full transparency, I used to be afraid to say things like that.  I used to be afraid to say God can answer any prayer, give any sign, do any miracle… because I was afraid that if God didn’t do the miracle, that it would somehow make someone not believe or lose faith in God.  But, I’m not God.  I’m not in control of how people respond or how God responds, I’m responsible for relaying the message and trusting Jesus with the rest.  I’m the messenger, he’s the one in control of the outcome.  Who am I to limit God?  I believe God can truly do anything and I mean anything.  I’ve seen him do things I didn’t believe could be done, so who am I to limit my God? Can God give someone a miraculous sign that he exists? 100%.  God can do anything, but we must first believe it, ask it, and it’s God’s choice whether or not he wants to deliver that specific sign.  When my driver asked me if God could give him a sign, I believe with my whole heart God can, so I responded saying yes and told him we’d pray about it before I left the Uber ride.  

Here’s the climax.  We pulled up to my house and my Uber driver started looking around… then he responded with “wait… I’ve been here before.  Is there a man that lives here who may have taken an Uber ride to the airport?… I think I was here recently.” .. Then it hit me. It all came back to me.  I recognized the outside of the car I was in. I realized the car I was in was the very same car that I had prayed over while looking out my window exactly 7 days earlier when my husband got into his Uber ride. The Uber driver who picked up my husband that Monday afternoon was the exact same Uber driver that God had sent to O’hare to take me to my house that Sunday morning.  Details, friends… details.  We serve a God who is in ALL the details.  God wants to be a part of it all, but it’s us who don’t invite him into it all.  I shared with my Uber driver that the “sign from God” he had been asking for is right in front of his face.  God used me to share with my Uber driver that he in fact is VERY real and as we had been talking about God giving people signs, God had brought him to my house not once, but twice, and he used me to share the Gospel with him.  I prayed over that exact Uber driver 7 days earlier and now God was using me to share the very thing I prayed for.  If this wasn’t a “sign from God”, I don’t know what would be.  We prayed and I felt God move.  While I wish the story would end with my Uber driver accepting Christ, I’m believing that God has touched his heart in a way that only God can.  God loves my Uber driver so much that he sent him not only once to my house, but twice to hear the Gospel and show that he goes after the lost sheep.  God put David and I on separate flights. God kept me from driving home comfortably in my car and instead had me take an Uber ride.  God changed “my plans” to bring forth His purpose.  

If I wasn’t faithful, he would have sent someone else.  I’m so grateful that I got to see God move, respond, and go after his lost sheep. I’m grateful that I got to be a part of it because I invited God into it.  So does God give signs?  I believe God can and will do anything to find his lost sheep.  If you’re still struggling to believe, have you tried praying about it, earnestly?  Have you sought God with your whole heart and asked him to reveal himself to you?  Jesus will do it.  I’m confident that God will show up for those who seek him honestly.  There are so many details I still haven’t shared about this story, but we did in fact confirm that it was the exact same Uber driver who picked up David and myself.  On different apps, different phones, different days, different people, out of thousands of Uber rides to and from Ohare, we got the same guy.  Many may see that as a “coincidence”, but I’m telling you, that’s God.  Jeremiah 29:11-14 says “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity”.  If you haven’t seen God move, if you haven’t seen God respond, if you haven’t asked God to reveal himself to you, what are you waiting for?  Ask and you will receive.  I believe God for it… don’t just take me at my word, ask God for yourself!