Not sure when it happened, but at some point in my adulthood I became an oatmeal eater. For a ‘Bama boy, I might as well start calling a Coke “Soda Pop.”

When I choose to have oatmeal for breakfast, that usually means one packet of instant oatmeal. Occasionally I intentionally choose to double up. That wasn’t my intent this morning. Yet I did.

When I reached into the box for the one envelope, I actually pulled out two. I told myself it was not a double-up day and returned one envelope.

As I opened the one envelope and emptied it into my bowl, I realized I had unintentionally gotten a double-up bowl. In my structured world, there are one-envelope bowls, and there are two-envelope bowls. So what was I to do? Should I change bowls? Or, heaven forbid, do I double up when I’d already decided not to?

A thought occurred.  “Maybe I’m supposed to eat two packs.  Maybe there was unknown purpose behind my grabbing two envelopes and ‘mistakenly’ getting the wrong bowl.  Maybe I should just follow the signs.”

Is it possible in more life-changing moments that the Holy Spirit works through signs like this, and I just shut him out?  He’s led me to do something unusual, but my need for normalcy or understanding keep me from following?  I’m pretty sure the answer is yes.

Instead of changing bowls, I retook the second envelope.  I doubled up purely to follow the signs.

Has doubling up this morning changed my life?  Doubtful.  But it certainly changed my spirit.