Spring time is here, new life is bursting forth all around us. It is a great time to reflect on how God is moving in and around us. God is alive and well. He hasn’t changed. The same God who did miracles and signs and wonders is still doing them today. We need only to look, to open our eyes and find God’s extraordinary ways in the ordinary happenings of our everyday lives.

I heard a story about a barber who said he didn’t believe in God. The patron asked him why. He said that if you just look around you, you’ll see suffering, sickness, and pain. God can’t possibly exist if all those things exist. The patron didn’t know how to respond. After the haircut, the patron left. After walking out he saw a man with long, dirty, unkempt hair. After a thoughtful moment, the man turned and walked back into the barber shop. He told the barber that barbers do not exist. The barber argued that he had just cut the man’s hair. The man told him to just look outside, and see the man with dirty, unkempt hair. If barbers existed, the man’s hair would be clean and cut. The barber refuted that the man had to come in. The patron then told him that it is the same with God. Then he smiled and left.

This story caught my attention. How true it is. The kingdom of God is at hand and we need only to reach out and grasp it. Many people choose not to come into fellowship with their creator. He is speaking to us all the time, revealing his mysteries. The problem is that we have predetermined what a “God-encounter” will look like. We are so intent on finding God our way, that we miss some extraordinary experiences. I want to have eyes and ears like that patron. God gave him a word for the barber, in the twinkling of an eye or the sight of dirty hair, God made himself known. He revealed his heart of love and compassion. And, to be that man – he stopped and went back into the barber’s to say what God showed him. He didn’t “blow it off”. He responded to God’s call for that moment, for that time, for that person. He experienced the extraordinary in the ordinary.

As I was driving, in a hurry to get where I was going, a fleeting movement caught my eye. A bright red cardinal stood out against the background of a currently green desert. A sense of joy and life flooded my being. God – revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Another time as I was driving to work, I was listening to a CD that I’ve heard many times before. A song came on that I didn’t particularly like. All of a sudden, my senses came alive and I heard certain words that brought tears to my eyes. God revealed his loving concern for me in that moment and used the ordinary happenings in my everyday life.

God is alive and moving today. He is still doing miracles. He is still healing people. He is calling to us in our ordinary lives, wanting to reveal his extraordinary ways. Take time to listen, see hear and be used. You need only to come in.