“Interesting” things seem to keep happening to me and it makes me wonder, is this God revealing, communicating through scripture, or strange coincidences? I’ve been telling people close to me about these occurrences when they happen, but I may start writing about them since they seem so frequent lately and if it’s only a strange coincidence, then it’s entertaining/intriguing (at least to me, maybe to someone else?).
Earlier this week, I opened up to a random page in the Bible after praying that God “speaks to or shows” me something from the Bible when I read it. If I don’t make an immediate connection, sometimes I think it’s meant for someone else possibly? This is how I often decide what I post on my “Faith” Instagram account when I don’t have a topic on my mind as soon as I wake up in the morning. As I was reading, my dog hops onto the couch, right next to me and puts his paw on the Bible. I just thought he looked cute, so I took a picture and laughed at him, then sent the picture to a few people I’m close to, who know this dog’s funny personality and might laugh. Here’s the picture:
This was one text response I received (posted with permission):
So that was on Monday, I thought nothing of it, didn’t make a connection with anything, but read it wondering what significance it might have, if any? Tuesday was busy, I ended work at 8 pm and then caught up on “news,” which was informative, but discouraging at the same time. I found a few Instagram accounts posting current events and pointing out biblical connections when appropriate, so I followed those accounts because I’ve been noticing some of that on my own (when I was reading “prophecies” in the Bible and started seeing current world events relating to them) so this would be interesting to me to see what they find. After that, I decided I had enough for the day and went to bed; I was exhausted.
Wednesday morning after I opened to a random page and posted the scripture from it like usual, I looked through the feed on my faith account. (I only follow the accounts of people or entities that I learn something from, or who have contributed to my growth in learning more about Christianity on my faith account.) The accounts I follow are “resources” that I’ve found in alignment with what I found in the Bible, not any particular denomination, more of a variety, with the exception of the “news” sources I just recently followed. Anyway, in the Instagram feed I saw a recent discovery by Israeli archaeologists with the inscription: ‘Jerubbaal’ believed to be from about 3,100 years ago and reading further the post states “after he broke down the altar of Baal”. This triggered my memory: I just read about that: it was in the picture with my dog! So of course I had to let the person I was texting with know about this update after we had been joking/laughing about me “being shown” something while reading the Bible! (Even though this does happen; I didn’t think this was one of those times.) But this gets even more personal later…
First, here is what I saw in the feed:
So this is the scripture my dog was covering:
So that connection was worth exploring more now: the photo with my dog was in the book of Kings, not Judges, but part of the account was about the Baal Temple destruction. Then I noticed “Joash” in the title of the next chapter, Chapter 11. I wondered, how many Joash are in the Bible? Is Joash, the son of Gideon mentioned by the archaeologist the same as this Joash? So I looked that up too: here’s what I found. There certainly appears to be a connection, even though it’s not the same book from the Bible. So the person I was texting with said, I just searched Baal and this popped up: The Largest Baal Worship Service on the Planet is in America. Of course I had to read that article because when we read the Bible about stuff like this (worship of idols/false gods) we always think, that was back then, people don’t do this now! Well this article hits even more personally to me as I read it further. In reading this, I am acknowledging: this is someone’s opinion, but at the same time, this is eerie too! Here is a factual account of this event (link).
Next is how it becomes personal to me: if you’ve been following my blog, or if not, you can even go back and look at prior posts, in 2017, I decided to “Surrender to God” (which for me meant praying every day, but I didn’t really change my lifestyle too much at first). I noticed shortly after I “surrendered” all sorts of “bad” things started happening to me, then “good” things, then “bad”, then “good” again. It was like wave after wave and it was tough. Anyway, in 2017, I was in this “baby stage” as a Christian, probably our most vulnerable time, in hindsight. And I also think this was the start of God testing my faith but also revealing things too and disciplining me. If you read my posts from 5 years ago you will see this. In 2017, I was always going somewhere and one of the events I happened to go to was an art festival with music (one of my favorite hobbies): “Burbs Music and Art Festival”…here are links to the photos from my personal Instagram account taken in August 2017, the same month and year of that linked article above (scary):
UFO by Gateway Burners, local chapter of Burning Man
Burbs Music and Art Festival 2
Burbs Music and Art Festival 3
Burbs Music and Art Festival 4
When I realized the connection to Burning Man and Baal Worship after reading the article, I initially thought: I’m going to delete those posts! But then I reconsidered: we can’t change the past, I went completely ignorant to what was talked about in that author’s opinion, I was intrigued by the art and music festival. If the festival happened again, I wouldn’t go because of that article I read, which makes me question all of it. But it also made me think about all the “subliminal” things we are exposed to unknowingly. It also made me wonder how many other people are “innocent” to this in participating and what influence, if any this has on our lives? From the bible we are told we are the subjects of “spiritual warfare” It really makes me think, maybe we shouldn’t be so naïve to this? Maybe we shouldn’t brush this off as “meaningless, unimportant, not impactful?” Do we really know? Jesus told his followers they couldn’t understand earthly things he was trying to tell them about, so how could he tell them about the spiritual world, despite the fact that his followers actually witnessed demonic possessions in their travels along with miracles and healing. Because of all of this, I tend to think there very well could be subtle spiritual deception in our lives working for a greater purpose later on. Again, I think it’s good to be aware of this, don’t be “blind” to this. There are blatant things happening in our world right now that are completely against God. How we live is a personal choice we make, and this is between God and each of us; no one should judge anyone else because we honestly don’t know everything. But we should have a clear conscience with God about how we are living our lives, if we don’t, it may be the reason for a personal change, if we choose God’s Kingdom.
Also this morning, while getting ready, I listened to Tim Keller’s Gospel in Life: The Robber’s House (another good one!) when he said: as Christians we are either “all in” or “all out” it made me think about that statement in relation to how I live my life. He’s right. Jesus had that warning to one of the churches in Revelation, about people being “lukewarm” and if they didn’t change he was about to figuratively “spit them out” or “extinguish their lampstand.” It gave me much to think about today.
So what do you think about all these events? Is God communicating or is this a strange coincidence?
S.A.I.L. 
I know this post is three years old, and I don’t even know if you will read this, but I definitely think it is more than a coincidence. What led me here to read your experience is because I just googled “are things just a coincidence or is it God communicating” and I found this article.
I’ve been on a journey this last year trying to really work on my relationship with God, read the Bible daily, and listen to sermons and Christian things and such. Well I just started going back to church, and I took my two sons with me this morning. Well at the church I go to, they will have different speakers from time to time, and they happened to have the guy from Duck Dynasty, named Willie Robertson. I’ve heard of the show but know nothing about them or him. He spoke about putting God first above anything else and a little about his journey. He mentioned something about that he said something or made comments about something political at some point, and I guess it had a negative effect on his life and made him realize he needed to take a look at his life and reevaluate his relationship with God and how he sees the importance of putting God first and he tries to spread the message now and spread the gospel. It really was good what he talked about.
Well we go and eat lunch after church and I mentioned to my sons how I really liked what he said and I was kind of curious about his story. So we get home, and me being a you tube watcher, I out of habit was just looking on TV to find something to watch, and in my recommended videos there was a video of Willie Robertson speaking at another church, not mine. But I thought this to be very strange. I’ve NEVER searched for anything remotely close to do anything with this guy or Duck Dynasty or any of that on my youbtube account. Nothing close. I watch christian videos, yes, but why and how immediately when I got home from listening to him at my church did that video mysteriously pop up in my you tube home page of the very same man speaking the same thing at a completely different church. So I looked up more about him, and basically it said the Duck Dynasty family was very divided on political issues and that led to the demise of the show and the family not being on the same page. That’s what made him realize God has to come first before anything, so I guess he goes around to different churches now to share his story.
So I feel like God is trying to show me something with this whole experience and my personal belief is that these “coincidences” are a way for God to show us that if we are looking He is letting us know He is right there with us. I constantly read scripture every single day and night and pray for not really specific things but for God to give me wisdom and let me know what it is He wants me to do. So I’m still trying to figure out exactly what He might be trying to tell me through this. It just happened, so I will be spending some time and praying and reading the Bible trying to see more of what God might be trying to tell me. And I’ve had 3 or 4 of these types of things happen over the last year. To other people they might kind of scoff like, “yeah, big deal. It’s just coincidences”. But to me its a big deal. And your experience helps me see these kind of things do happen to people. Your article really helped me to have even more faith. I hope you read this, and I hope you have a blessed day.
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I’m so happy to hear you are experiencing these things because years later, I’ve found these aren’t coincidences but God drawing us near to Him. So much more has happened in my life since I wrote this, my faith has grown tremendously and I’ve had so many surprises from God in these past few years. Life is not always perfect, but God is good and works all things for the good of those who love and obey Him. He is love and puts people in our paths to affirm this at times. In hindsight, the closer we draw near to God, the more love He shows us over time. It is amazing! So I’m happy for you because I know God is good and I believe you will look back on things years later, just like I’m doing now and realize all God has done. I’ve had some unbelievable things happen since my faith journey began. I was baptized in 2021 (when I finally fully surrendered to God)and the very night of my baptism, I started having biblically related dreams and dreams about “the name of Jesus”- never in my life did I ever have any “biblically”themed dreams before, but since that first one, I’ve had over 40! Never expected or anticipated that, but then a scene or element in my dream would happen later in real life. The first few dreams I thought were “interesting” but after 40, it’s more than that! I had believe already, but these made my faith grow even more. I realized the Bible is true; this is all real! There is something awaiting believers that will be unimaginable and incredible. All I can say to you, is keep on seeking God and there will be amazing things that will happen in your future! Our relationship with God is personal and He reaches all of us in different ways, but He definitely loves us and is drawing us near to Him. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. 🙏🏼🩵
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