“You know it’s not a good idea,” I said.

“Look,” my friend said, “I told God, if you want me to date this girl, then send me a letter from my parents by next week at this time. And I got a letter.”

“So now you’re dating?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

People have been asking for signs from God since before Gideon’s fleece (see Judges 6:36-40 for the story). How much simpler it is to receive a plain directive than to grapple with difficult decisions.

In my friend’s case, despite his strong sense that this girl was wrong for him, he went ahead with his prayer. When the letter came, he justified doing what he wanted to do. Two months later, however, the relationship ended with a lot of pain.

Perhaps there are better ways to listen to God: reading Scripture, praying, paying attention to the wisdom of those who know and care for us, and taking care of our bodies through rest and nutrition, for instance. Had my friend used these many resources to make his decision, his course of action may have been very different.

Sometimes our requests for signs are a sort of superstition, essentially following in the ways of sorcerers and diviners, who look for easy answers in the occult and supernatural, rather than taking the slow road of wisdom.