God Comes to Us in Many Different Ways

February 12 — A Life Lesson

“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10

There was a time in my life when I believed God spoke in only one way — through Scripture, through church, through sermons preached from a pulpit.

But seventy-six years of living have taught me something different.

God comes to us in many different ways.

Through people.
Through music.
Through books.
Through movies.
Through joy.
Through tragedy.
Through events that shake us.
Through moments that quietly redirect our lives.

Today is February 12.

On February 12, 1974, Amanda Joy was born — stillborn. Our first child.
That day changed my wife and me forever. It challenged our faith. It deepened our grief. It stripped away clichés about God and left us with silence.

But even in that silence, God was present.

God did not arrive with explanations.
God arrived with endurance.

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The Storm That Came Inland

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast and roared ninety miles inland to West Laurel, Mississippi — where I lived and served West Laurel United Methodist Church.

The storm was violent. The aftermath overwhelming.

But something else roared inland too.

Volunteers.

Churches opened. Strangers showed up. Our church became one of the hubs for relief work. I saw chainsaws, casseroles, tears, prayers, exhaustion, and hope all mixed together.

God was not only in the wind.

God was in the hands that rebuilt.

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Birth Years

Three holy years.

A son.
Two daughters.

Each birth felt like grace rewriting sorrow. Each child taught me something about patience, surrender, and love that no seminary class ever could.

God speaks through children.

God reveals through laughter in a hallway and sleepless nights in a rocking chair.

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The Movies That Preached

There were films that spoke sermons when I needed them most:

Places in the Heart.
Priest.
Rustin.

God has used stories on a screen to reveal courage, integrity, justice, and the complexity of faith. Sometimes the Spirit moves not from a pulpit but from a theater seat.

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The Songs That Directed My Path

Wayne Watson’s The Fine Line.
The Judds’ Love Can Build a Bridge.
George Michael’s Freedom ’90 (Live).

Music has often carried direction into my life when words failed me. A lyric would settle into my spirit and refuse to leave. A chorus would whisper purpose when I felt uncertain.

God has sung to me more than once.

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The Books That Opened My Eyes

Radical Love by Rev. Patrick Cheng.
The Universal Christ by Father Richard Rohr.
And, of course, the Bible.

Through these voices, God expanded my understanding — beyond fear, beyond rigid certainty, into grace, mystery, and a larger love than I was first taught.

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The People I Did Not Expect

God has spoken through friends. Through family. Through strangers.

Through a Hell’s Angel sitting in a hospital ICU.
Through a visit with a Ku Klux Klan member in his own home.

In places I might have preferred to avoid.

God does not limit revelation to comfortable rooms.

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The Day Everything Shifted

October 12, 1964.

I was fourteen years old when my father died.

Up until that day, I was going to become a college professor.

After that day, I felt called to ministry.

Grief became calling.
Loss became direction.

That was the most profound shift of my life.

God did not shout.
God did not overwhelm.

But in the stillness of loss, something inside me changed.

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Be Still

Looking back across decades, I see a pattern.

God does not come to me in only one language.

God comes in wind and silence.
In hospital rooms and hurricane zones.
In birth announcements and funeral processions.
In movie theaters and song lyrics.
In strangers and in children.

The Psalmist was right:

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

Stillness is not the absence of events.

It is the posture that allows us to recognize God in them.

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A Life Lesson

If I have learned anything in seventy-six years, it is this:

God is not confined to church walls.

God comes to us in many different ways —
if we are paying attention.

Tonight I pause.

I remember Amanda Joy.
I remember Katrina.
I remember my father.
I remember the births of my children.

And I whisper:

Thank you, God, for coming to me in ways I did not expect.

Reflection for the Reader

Take a quiet moment and ask yourself:

• When has God come to me in an unexpected way?
• Was there a difficult event that later revealed purpose?
• Has a song, a film, or a book ever spoken to my soul at just the right time?
• Is there someone — even someone unlikely — through whom God may have been speaking?

Sometimes we miss God because we are looking in only one direction.

Be still.

Look again.

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Closing Prayer

Gracious and Mysterious God,

You are not confined to sanctuaries or sermons.
You move through wind and whisper,
through sorrow and celebration,
through music and memory,
through strangers and those we love most.

Teach us to be still enough to recognize You.
Open our eyes to Your presence in the ordinary and the overwhelming.
Help us trust that even in loss and tragedy,
You are not absent.

Thank You for speaking in many languages —
through people, through stories, through storms,
and through the quiet turning points of our lives.

Give us hearts that listen.
Give us courage to follow.
Give us peace in knowing You are near.

Amen.