Book Comment: When God Winks at You

     When God Winks at You, by SQuire ("es-quire," get it?) Rushnell, was described as a "cute book" by the person who gave it to me.  She liked it so much she bought multiple copies and gave them out to her feriends.

     Before his retirement, Rushnell was a long time executive with the American Broadcasting Company television network (he's the man responsible for Schoolhouse Rock) and draws on his friendships and acquantances for short vignettes which illustrate how what appear to be unlikely coincidences are actually God speaking to us non-verbally; little split second miracles. 

     My response to this insight is, "Of course."  This is one of the ways in which God speaks to His people.  Every believer who is spiritually attuned to listen to God has experienced it; every day if they are really listening; just last night for me.

     I was working on a blog post (I sometimes work ahead and "pre-post" for later dates) and, since I have a memory like a sieve, I pulled out my Cruden's Compact Concordance to find the Bible verse for which I was searching.  I opened my Bible and there was no page shuffling necessary; the verse I was looking for was sitting there on the right hand page.  Hello.

     Rushnell calls these happenings GodWinks, God's way of reminding us that He's there ... "a direct personal message of reassurance."

     Jesus has told us that He is always with us, each, personally (Jeremiah 1:5).  He knows and attends to every individual flower (Matthew 6: 28-30).  He knows when a bird falls from a tree and He knows how many hairs you have on your head (Matthew 10: 29-31) .  He knows your every thought as you think it, before you think it, and he knows you by name (Exodus 33:17).  Sometimes He gives us GodWinks.

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     SQuire Rushnell says that his personal hero is Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote The Power of Positive Thinking.  It shows.

     A criticism some people have of Dr. Peale and other power of postive thinking advocates is that they are generic Christians,  rarely mentioning Jesus.  The word "Christ" does not appear until page thirty of When God Winks at You and then only in a quote from the president of the United States.  This does not negate the validity of the point the book makes.

Rushnell, SQuire, When God Winks at You.  How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2006)