When God Knows You

Recently it’s felt as though the Lord has been guiding me down a path I didn’t expect. Not a dramatic one — just a subtle, persistent tug. Almost as if He wanted me to ask, “God, are You listening?”

But I wouldn’t ask that. I know He listens.

So instead, He pressed a little harder. Not to make me question His presence, but to help me recognize the real question forming in my heart:

“Lord, even though I know You care and I know You hear me… why don’t You sometimes simply let me know that You’re listening? I’m human, and humans need reassurance.”

After all, He made us this way.

I tucked that thought away, telling myself it wasn’t important — even though it was true. We were created to need reminders of God’s care. And if the second greatest commandment is to reflect His heart, then maybe I should be more intentional about offering that reassurance to others.

Still, the idea quietly lingered, at first.

And then something happened — something I’m not exactly eager to admit. But the odds were too strange to ignore.

God often speaks to me in ways that are consistent, familiar. Usually it’s something meant for someone else. But this time, the message was for me. And it came through a phrase from a completely nonsensical song — a hit from the 1940s — the last place I would have expected to hear Him.

It may be strange, but I couldn’t ignore it.

“Mairzy Doats”

A line from that song popped into my mind out of nowhere — not as a melody, not as nostalgia, but as a statement. I could almost see it printed on the page of an old songbook. I hadn’t heard that song in decades.

A few minutes later, YouTube pushed it to me. But it played not the whole song — just that exact phrase, right in the middle, and then it stopped with precision.

I don’t even like the song. The only thing mildly interesting about it is the homophones, and that’s only because I’ve been writing stories that use some wordplay. I couldn’t help but think, “I’d like to hear it clearly enunciated, the entire song, at least a certain part of it.” And while the desire was real, it was more subconscious, because I didn’t like the song.

Still… something about this felt like it was from the Lord even though I couldn’t see how.

It was very early in the morning, so I shut down the computer and turned on the TV and Petticoat Junction was on. I don’t like that show either, but I left it running for a moment.

Within thirty seconds, the character Kate Bradley did the one thing I had just been thinking about: she clearly enunciated the entire song Mairzy Doats, the exact part I had wanted to hear.

Why? What was the point of that? What was I supposed to understand?

Don’t we hear enough nonsense nowadays? But maybe that’s part of the point — the contrast.

I hadn’t heard that song in decades. My mind knows enough math to recognize that the odds of a random, nonsensical phrase appearing at just the right moment, in just the right way, are astronomical. The odds of that happening by chance were so absurdly small that I couldn’t dismiss it.

So I had to ask myself: Was this God’s way of saying, “I’m listening. I care.”

I’ve been through more than my share of bad and awful things, and I often joke that somehow I’ve managed to keep my sense of humor. I genuinely believe God has one too. But this didn’t feel like a joke.

Lighthearted, maybe — but not trivial.

It felt like a gentle, almost playful reassurance wrapped around something real:
“I’m listening. I care.”

And maybe, because of my health, because of the weight I’ve been carrying, He chose to deliver that reassurance in a way I couldn’t brush aside. Something unmistakable, something oddly precise. Something that made my current burdens a little more bearable.

He could have delivered the message through a Psalm, or a sermon, or even out of the mouth of a child. Instead, He chose something unexpected — something so specific, so improbable, that I couldn’t ignore it.

A spiritual profundity wrapped in a most unlikely package.

I’ve always wanted to make God smile — maybe even laugh, but in a gentle, affectionate way. The kind of laugh a parent has when a child does something earnest and sincere. But how would I ever know if I had succeeded?

Maybe this was how, through a bizarre, improbable, whimsical phrase from a 1940s novelty song that I couldn’t ignore. Sometimes God chooses the unexpected precisely because it gets our attention.

A one‑in‑billions moment, delivered with precision, wrapped in whimsy, but carrying a message that was anything but trivial:
“I’m listening. I care.”

And maybe, just maybe…
God smiled.

As I was writing this article, a storm rolled in — sudden, loud, insistent. Thunder shook the house, hail hammered the roof, and the sirens wailed until I finally had to shut the computer down.

Hours later, after the storm had passed, I sat back down and finished the article. It was nearly 5 a.m.

Was there any meaning in that timing? Only the Lord knows. All I know is that I stayed safe and snug the whole time, with a terrified cat practically glued to me for hours. C'est la vie. Storm first, reassurance after. Turbulence, then tenderness.

Telle est la vie d'un apôtre fatigué.
(Such is the life of a weary apostle.)

I don’t speak French. I just needed something that sounded tired, poetic, possibly dramatic.