You Can Pick the Sign, But You Can’t Pick the Time

My last post was about the waiting game that is having faith. Humans, as a species, are just meddlesome. We think we are SO special, with our opposable thumbs and overactive brain matter. We think we can solve any problem if we put our minds or our hands to it. 

Except for that we definitely cannot, and often our overactive imaginations get very much in the way of progress and well being. The number of people who are just swimming in systemic stress is mind-boggling. We are regularly bathing our brains in cortisol for no good reason, which apparently has some pretty direct ties to developing Alzheimers (among other things). This is one of many reasons why I am writing this blog. 

I have spent a lifetime, already, trying to sort out what ails me and, by proxy, what ails humanity. We are magnificent creatures and we have come up with many important solutions to the stress question, but often the most important factor missing from implementing ALL of them is one simple, but profound component: belief. Therapy works better if the clients being treated believe it will work. Heck, belief is so strong we can do ourselves a world of good simply through the placebo effect.

I think sometimes, when I talk about faith, it makes people angry. It’s as if their lack of faith is the same as me blaming them for their ailments. I understand how some might make that leap and I have been in that mindset myself. I felt like I was being blamed for feeling terrible when the world felt like a terrible place. 

At the time, I was paying a lot of attention to the media, which is hell bent on telling all of us that Everything is Awful all the time. I would caution all of you, Dear Readers, from buying into this narrative for a variety of reasons. 

First of all, it’s designed to make us collectively anxious and keep everyone in a state of hypervigilance, so that we pay attention constantly, which leads to more and more exposure to the associated advertisements for miscellaneous products we should purchase to help us feel better about how bad everything seems. See how vicious that cycle is?

Second, if you look around in your community, there are probably incredibly GOOD things happening all the time and we don’t pay them enough energy or attention.

Third, if we’re all depressed and anxious, we are less likely to contribute to ensuring good things are happening in the world around us. Depression slows us down and makes us feel like we can’t do anything. Anxiety makes us fearful and leads us to expect a negative outcome. 

It’s good to be informed, but not at the expense of our own will to live, desire to help, or ability to invest in ourselves, our relationships, and our community. I assure you, everything is NOT awful, especially if you are willing to give hope and faith a chance. 

Lots of people have no idea where to start or how this faith BLEEP even works. It’s actually not that complicated. The most important part is to just START. The willingness to believe in Good (or God) is all it takes and it leads to magnificent things over time. 

Over. Time. 

Patience is not a virtue of ours collectively at the moment, so one thing that helps is to pick a sign to look out for. The sequence goes as follows: Pray for whatever you want, big or small. It’s often better to start small and be vague when new to having faith, because God (or Good) answers prayers in its own time and we don’t want to get our little hopes crushed too early in the game. 

I will say, as a warning, it is still possible to have your hopes totally, completely, and utterly crushed while having faith. Faith is not about getting whatever we want. Faith is about making the most of everything, looking for lessons in hardships, and believing any outcome is for the best. 

This happened to me recently, actually. I was very much in love with someone. I had this rainbows and unicorns vision of our future together that would have made a My Little Pony blush. I was all in and all about it, but God (or Good) put this miserable, unavoidable, pain-in-my-BLEEP impediment in our path that just became insurmountable. There was nothing I could do about it, but Lawd did I struggle. Lawd, did I try to accept it. Lawd, did I try everything, everything, everything until I finally realized God (or Good) put that impediment there for a reason. 

Hopes and dreams crushed. Just stomped all over. Ouch. 

I don’t blame God (or Good), because I was willfully ignoring the signs for two years. Like all other humans on the planet, I think I know better than Good (or God) on a regular basis. But, I will say that faith made it easier to try to learn a lesson (or ten) and keep moving. 

Crushable dreams aside, the point here is that if you’re struggling with having patience after saying a prayer, try picking a sign that will provide guidance. We don’t get to dictate the terms of our faith, but we do get to ask for directions. It goes a little bit like this: 

If I am meant to do X, then send me a sign. 

If I am meant to do Y, then X will happen. 

The crux of the issue here is that you can pick a sign, but you can’t pick the time, nor should you hold your breath and wait around for a sign to turn up. The point is to live your life, slow down, be kind, seek purpose, have hope, and cultivate faith that you’ll either get guidance that you are on the right path or guidance that you are not.

The trick is that you may not ever get the sign you asked for. Asking for the sign alleviates the pressure of waiting, searching, looking around, and trying to solve it ourselves. It is an act of working under the assumption that God (or Good) is working on it and will let us know when it is time. We get to go about our business of living well, rather than obsessing, problem-solving, forcing, or troubleshooting. If we don’t get the sign we are seeking or we run into a major roadblock, it means Good (or God) has other plans. 

Asking for a sign is an exercise in detachment, in distraction, in letting go. It’s an exercise in all those fancy things each spiritual practice demands of us and we barely understand. Instead of playing God (or Good), we get to keep living and just try to keep an eye out.

It takes off all the pressure, and you won’t believe what might turn up.