Reflection
The Sign You Keep Stepping Over
The turn signal keeps clicking while the car remains parked.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
A small mechanical prayer for people who would prefer certainty before movement.
In Micah, God places Israel in the witness box and asks, almost painfully, “What have I done to you?” He remembers rescue, protection, the long history of being present. The people respond the way anxious people often do: by offering religious excess. More sacrifices. More oil. Something impressive enough to settle the account.
We do this too. We ask for a sign, preferably dramatic, unmistakable, and available before our next appointment. Meanwhile, the apology sits unsent. The lonely person’s number remains in our phone. The unfairness at work continues because speaking up would be inconvenient.
Micah’s answer is almost offensively simple: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. Not understand everything. Not feel certain. Walk.
In the Gospel, the scribes and Pharisees demand another sign from Jesus, though he is already standing before them. Perhaps sign-seeking is not always faith. Sometimes it is our way of postponing what we already know. We keep asking heaven to clarify what love has already made plain.
Ordinary goodness can be harder than it looks. We often prefer revelation to responsibility because revelation asks us to notice, while responsibility asks us to change. Miracles can be admired from a distance. Mercy usually requires us to cross the room.
Jesus points to Jonah and Solomon, but the deeper sign is his own presence: God near enough to be overlooked, ordinary enough to be dismissed, demanding no spectacle only attention.
The turn signal keeps clicking. The road has not become certain. It has only become ours to enter.
What good thing do you already know it is time to do?
