Unsure why this phenomenon seems to appear most often for me after making a purchase for a different vehicle, but I’m fairly certain you have faced this experience as well. Prior to my purchase, there appeared to be very few white Jeep Grand Cherokees in my area of Jackson; however, now that I am an owner of this vehicle, I see them everywhere around me. Whether it’s noticing the commonality of a shared automobile or some other physical object, to hearing a future travel destination emerge in multiple conversations, what is actually occurring is the engagement of the reticular activating system (RAS) in our brain. The RAS has many responsibilities including the regulation of the sleep/awake state and assisting with the fight or flight response, but it also sifts through information so only the important stuff gets through.

Some might opine that it is the reticular activating system that allows me to hear my name mentioned in a crowd of people and conversations or draws my attention to a particular word each time it is spoken orally or mentioned in writing. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that if someone posed the question to me, “What’s Your Word?” that my answer would pour out, “Flourish!” Asking a neuroscientist about this phenomenon of seeing the word more frequently, I suppose their explanation would include detailed descriptions of how nerve cells travel across the brain and spinal cord, activating the cerebral cortex, allowing us to learn, remember, and concentrate. However, my explanation for the appearance of the word flourish in my life is a Divine Activating System.

By choosing to embrace a Divine Activating System, I am not offering that coincidences do not occur, but instead there are moments when an experience becomes more than a fluke and, as a person of faith, develops into a deeper encounter with God. Rather than seeing every reading of the word flourish as an accident, each of those moments converts to little whispers from God. Whether the word appears in a spy novel, arises in a random conversation, or leaps from the pages of Scripture, I am confident that God is whispering a personal message meant just for me. When my Divine Activating System is functioning properly, He reminds me of passages like Isaiah 43:19 where there is an open invitation to “Be alert, be present. [He’s] about to do something brand new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?” (The Message).

The reticular activating system may communicate to my brain what my eyes are seeing, but the Divine Activating System connects my heart and the presence of the Holy Spirit to what I am reading and hearing. His whispers of the word flourish open my eyes and heart to see what He is already doing, what He has already planned for my life, and what He is inviting me into. Be willing to allow God to communicate with you in His own special way. As I mentioned in a previous post entitled Respectfully Mystified, God is weird sometimes, but that is often what it takes to grasp my attention in a world full of distractions.

How has God triggered your Divine Activating System? Please feel free to share thoughts and comments in the section below.