“Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.”
Luke 24:31a

In this cold and flu season, fingerprints are getting a bad rap as deposits of contagious germs.

There is a VBS song with the lyrics “God’s fingerprints are everywhere, just to show how much He cares.” How does God leave fingerprints in our lives? As a congregation, we have encouraged one another towards awareness of “God sightings”, times when we know that God has done things in our life we could not do on our own. Of course, these are not times when we actually see God, as if we meet him on the street, but instead, all of the times we see the evidence that God is active and working in our life. Like the followers of Jesus walking with him on the road to Emmaus we usually don’t notice until later that God has been right beside us all along, leading, guiding, or nudging us. We don’t see bright lights or hear angel choruses, just fingerprints of God’s love.

When my son was young he would always correct me if I would say something was a coincidence. He reminded me that God is always a part of things we call a coincidence. This has always stuck with me. It changes our perspective when we look at God as the co-author of the incident. Albert Einstein said “Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.” And I might add they are God’s fingerprints.

As people of God, we see God’s fingerprints when we open our spiritual eyes. Things that we could easily brush off as coincidence leave us in awe when we learn to pay more attention to God active and at work in our everyday life.

Holy God, make us more aware of your work in our lives. Fill us with gratitude that your fingerprints are everywhere, just to show how much you care. Amen.

This month’s devotion was written by Kathy Paisley, Director of Women’s Ministries. When not working at Sheridan, she enjoys time with her family, especially her two grandchildren.