Jamin Bradley

While we were driving my daughter said, “No way! I was just thinking about a bush and there’s a streetsign that says bush!”

“Why do you think that happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

“I can think of three possibilities,” I responded. “The first is what we call ‘subconscious.’ That’s when your brain remembers something deep down that you’re not aware of. So maybe you’ve seen that sign before and forgot, even though your brain remembered. In that case, bushes were on your mind as a way of remembering this street sign as we approached it. But I have a feeling that wasn’t the case.”

“The second possibility is what we call ‘coincidence,’” I continued. “Sometimes things just line up for no reason. You just happened to be thinking about bushes at the same time you saw that sign about a bush. That kind of stuff happens.”

“But the third possibility is often ignored,” I wrapped up. “Sometimes the Holy Spirit puts something on our minds to pay attention to. For example, the last few weeks the words ‘Occam’s Razor’ kept popping into my mind, which felt like weird words to randomly think about. Then, while I was reading a book this past week, there was a bunch of stuff in it about Occam that I didn’t know about. What I learned about his teaching answered some questions I’ve been praying about lately. Was that my subconscious? No, because I never knew it before. Was it coincidence? Maybe. But I felt like the Holy Spirit was trying to teach me something. So maybe the thought you had about bushes was just coincidence, or maybe the Holy Spirit was trying to teach you what his voice sounds like.”

“I wish more people chose the Holy Spirit option,” my son said.

I smiled. “Me too. But it is important to try and figure out when it’s him and when it’s not.”