Frederick Buechner was upset about his daughter’s illness. If you’ve ever worried about a sick child maybe you can relate to that gut-wrenching reality.

He was sitting at the side of the road parked in his car depressed and afraid. All of a sudden, another car came up from behind him as if out of nowhere and passed by. He looked up and noticed that it had a personalized license plate with a single word.

Buechner says it was “the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then.”

TRUST

He chose to understand it as a message from God.

Was it biblical? Check. Perhaps a response to prayer? Check. An encouraging word to lift the head and heart while stumbling through the uncertain shadows of life, family and illness? Check.

Psalm 56:3-4 (NLT) says, “when I am afraid, I will put my TRUST in you. I praise God for what he has promised. I TRUST in God, so why should I be afraid?”

I think God is communicating with us all the time. Through the Bible, through prayer, through the wisdom of other godly people, through worship… and through everyday moments we can too easily write off as “coincidence.”

Why wouldn’t he? He loves you like a precious, priceless child… because you ARE his precious, priceless child.

What if God is proactively reaching out to you with a word of encouragement, wisdom or direction?

Are you paying enough attention to notice?

By Matthew Ruttan

—You can now WATCH the sermon that this devotional is based on. It’s my latest message called “Asking God For a Sign” and you can watch it on YouTube here. Enjoy! [Hear the audio-only version here.]
–Bible quotes are from the NLT, emphasis added.
–Today’s story is from Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets, 49.