There is a moving worship song I came upon on YouTube a year or two ago, covered by a South African artist named “Lloyiso”. His version is impossibly beautiful and I began to listen to it often, though didn’t necessarily pay detailed attention to every word of the lyrics.

I don’t know when I finally, fully tuned in to what he was singing, but once I did, I was given a phrase that I haven’t forgotten and that I hope will be useful to you too.

First, I wanted to share the whole song, in case you want to listen to it. (It’s very worthwhile to do so):

The opening lyrics are these:

God of creation
There at the start
Before the beginning of time
With no point of reference
You spoke to the dark
And fleshed out the wonder of light

And as You speak
A hundred billion galaxies are born
In the vapour of Your breath the planets form
If the stars were made to worship, so will I
I can see Your heart in everything You’ve made
Every burning star
A signal fire of grace
If creation sings Your praises, so will I

Besides just being a deliciously poetic image of our God, to put creation in those terms, I was touched by the concept of a “signal fire of grace”.

We would love to be in tune enough to look around and see God’s hand in our lives; to feel that level of closeness to Him, but sometimes all we can look for is a distant signal fire that reminds us that He knows we have called for aid. The distance is not because He has removed Himself, but because we have batted His nearness away with distractions like social media, daily tasks, or stress and worry that make us feel that we don’t have time to stop and listen or read His words.

Being able to put a term like that to it has begun to make me more aware of His signal fires. One pretty surprising one happened this very week. I was having the kind of day that feels like it is over before it even starts because you wake up already tired and already in too deep.

In the afternoon, I put on a show for my two young sons and laid on my bed thinking, “I am absolutely drowning in the mess of this house. I have to do something about it and I need to engage with my boys, but I just can’t. It’s too much.” I felt tired and defeated and so helpless. Moments later, my four-year-old called out from the front room, “Mom, someone is at the door!”

I came to open it and there stood an 11-year-old girl from my neighborhood. She had come over to visit frequently during the summer because we had a litter of puppies and she wanted to snuggle them. But the puppies had all found new homes now and she knew that. She looked up at me from my doorstep in her frank, uninhibited way and said, “Can I help you clean?”

For the next two hours, she played with my boys and helped me tidy my house. She’s 11, so it wasn’t a TLC-worthy transformation, but it was a lift that I needed badly. It was…a signal fire of grace.

The Lord saw me in my down moment and sent whoever would listen to help.

In considering this divine gesture, I’ve thought back to so many other signal fires of grace that I have seen Him send.

And I would love to hear about your signal fires too. I would love anyone who has an experience like that to share it with me by emailing me at pr***********@*****il.com.

I would love to share readers’ “signal fire” experiences every Monday in a mini series. Particularly with the season of Thanksgiving fast approaching, maybe sharing your story will help someone else see that an experience they took for granted might actually have been a signal fire in their life too.

I look forward to hearing from you.