How to Connect the God Dots In Your Life

Ever bump into a stranger who became exactly the person you needed to meet? Or maybe you have heard a still, small voice encourage you to do something that feels inconvenient, unexpected, and uncomfortable, so you ignore it because you think you are completely unqualified to do what it suggests. 

What if you listened to that whisper and acted upon it? And what if meeting that stranger wasn’t a coincidence but part of a much larger divine weave at work in the world?

Recognizing and Connecting the God Dots

Over the past 15 years, I began recognizing experiences like these that I began calling the “God Dots” in my life—moments I couldn’t quite explain, yet without a doubt connected me to people and projects that were meant to be part of my story. 

For a long time, I was hesitant to talk about when I caught a glimpse of God in my life for fear of what others might say. But when I did find the courage to share one or two of these stories, I found I was not met with skepticism. In fact, not only would people react in awe but inevitably, they would begin a discussion of their own God Dot stories. 

That is when I began understanding their collective power. I wasn’t the only one catching a glimpse of God in my life; lots of people were having their own divine experiences. Most were just choosing to stay quiet about it. Once I started sharing with just a few people, however, I realized the problem with keeping God secret. 

Don’t Keep God Secret

If we do not share when we have a direct experience with God, we limit the possibility that these encounters will have the fullest impact. In my own life, once I started speaking to others, I realized our stories were interconnected in the most extraordinary ways. We never would have understood our miraculous God Dot connections if we’d remained afraid to talk about it. The real power of grace only becomes evident when we openly discuss it in order to reveal relationships so intricate that we could not possibly design them ourselves. I was dismissing signs of God as coincidence even when I had stumbled right into holy.

Instead of dismissing my God Dots, I now actively watch for them. Now I fully believe there are no coincidences. We are not here by accident. Our fates are very much tied to one another. It is like the constellations—once someone shows you the patterns in the stars, you can’t not see them.

While the signs might be small, the connections between each of us are impossibly interwoven once we begin to pay attention. There are miracles all around us every day. When we are feeling overwhelmed and unsure how to find our path, we need to be reminded that God is not above us or beyond us but rather right beside us. God is always whispering. We just need to be ready to listen.

Listen to the Whisper

It takes courage to listen to a whisper. It takes faith to step out of the life you know and into something completely unexpected. When a whisper comes into our lives, and it feels like it is disrupting all our plans, it most certainly is. Usually, we recognize that first whisper at the moment when we are restless for purpose, wondering if this is the life we were really meant to live. It might happen when we are contemplating a job change or facing a health challenge.

At first, it might be just a whim of an idea that seems to have no relation to your present reality.

Become a teacher. But you have spent 30 years in marketing.

Write a book. But you don’t believe you have anything to say.

Volunteer at a shelter. But you are fearful of who you might meet there.

What if meeting that stranger wasn’t a coincidence but part of a much larger divine weave at work in the world?

Listening to your whispers will mean you have to risk being changed. You probably have a “fear” voice that will try to drown out the still, small voice in your soul with a reminder you that you are unqualified to attempt something different. Your very logical “to-do” voice will argue that you are too busy to dream new dreams and that you have lots of life plans that have nothing do with this quiet calling. Both voices will attempt to drown out the whisper that keeps beckoning you to the shore of a different life.

But the funny thing about whispers is that they are incredibly persistent. The whisper will keep whispering until you finally have to decide either to listen or pretend you never heard it.

Maybe you have already heard a whisper that feels inconvenient, unexpected, or uncomfortable. You might have dismissed it as a silly thought or an impossible dream because you felt unqualified. Yet at the same time, that whisper has been insistent. What should you do?

Trust the whisper.

Follow the God Dots Step by Step

Take the first next step and the next. Stay on the path to see where it might take you. There will never be a neon sign to follow, just small hints that you are going in the right direction. When you keep following those small signs and whispers, you will be able to look back and see how far you have come, while at the same time understanding how far you have to go.

You will begin connecting your own God Dots and believing you are part of a divine weave that ties you to other people’s whispers. You will be led to a life you never thought possible, full of your own glimpses of God right there beside you. Even in moments when you feel lost, you will understand how you are holy found.

This new life—the one you were always meant to live—is found by listening.

It begins with a whisper.

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Kathy Izard is an award-winning author, speaker and an advocate for housing and mental health services in Charlotte, North Carolina. A portion of this essay is an excerpt from her new book Trust the Whisper: How Answering Quiet Callings Inspires Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Grace (Baker Books, June 2024) which helps readers connect the God Dots in their lives. Learn more at KathyIzard.com