I've mentioned before that just after I graduated high school, I went to work at Oven Fresh Bread Factory. I suspect that I also mentioned I hated that job. For two straight summers, I was what the old-timers called a “crib"—on-call summer help.

There were a bunch of us cribs. We didn't have set jobs, nor did we have set schedules. We were, as I said, on-call.

Working there meant I had to join the Teamsters Local and pay dues. One of the benefits won by our union was the great privilege of being required to work 12 hours whenever the supervisor said we had to. Then, we got a mandatory 10 hours off before they could call us back in. There were many days when I clocked in for two different 12-hour shifts in the same 24-hour day.

In addition, as I've also mentioned before, it was hot everywhere in the building except the employee break room. You can imagine being stuck between industrial ovens in an un-air-conditioned bakery for 12 hours a day. Plus, I almost lost the fingers on my right hand in an industrial accident on that job. Needless to say, it was pretty bleak.

I'm not sure I mentioned it, but if I didn't, I hated that job. But I was making almost $6.98 an hour, which was almost twice the minimum wage, and my dad was the "you're-not-sitting-around-here-all-summer-doing-nothing" kind of dad. So, I went to work when Oven Fresh called. Invariably, it seemed, they called sometime in the middle of the night.

I'd shuffle out to my '72 gold Pontiac Le Mans, which was also un-air-conditioned, and I'd head into work. And every time, on the way into the factory, I'd get nauseated thinking about being in that place for another 12 hours.

At 18 or 19-years-old, I wasn't much of a pray-er. But on that trip into the factory, I'd pray my sweaty little heart out. "Please God, do something so I don't have to clock in tonight. I don't want anyone to get hurt, but if you could have that place burn down before I get to the employee parking lot, I'd be much obliged. It doesn't have to be big, just enough to shut everything down so I can go back home and go to bed. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Looking back, they were almost like panic attacks. I felt stuck in a life that I hated. Because when you're 18, you're pretty sure that enduring three months of misery constitutes a lifetime. And I didn't know if I could hang on.

I just wanted some sign from God that I was going to make it through another night. A little certainty as I peered into the mists of another nightmare shift in what felt like an endless string of nightmare shifts. And though I didn't think of myself as much of a pray-er, I was sure hoping that God would show up when I called.

I'd like to tell you that was just an 18-year-old's panic. That I grew out of it. That somewhere between then and now I developed the kind of mature, settled faith that doesn't need signs, doesn't sweat the silences, or lie awake at 3 am negotiating with its own doubt.

But I think you know better than that. And I suspect you know the same kind of feeling from the inside. Maybe not a bread factory.

Maybe it's the state of the world right now, which has its own way of generating that particular nausea on the way in.

Maybe it's something personal, something you're carrying that I don't know about. But that prayer, the one that goes "Just show me something, God, something I can hold onto tonight," that prayer doesn't really have an age limit, does it?

Let's be honest, we're not so different from what we were at 18 or 19. We just have a better vocabulary for the panic.

Which is why I find Philip interesting in our text this morning.

Philip is one of Jesus's disciples, which means he's been in the room for all of it. Since the beginning. The feeding of the five thousand. The raising of Lazarus. He's watched Jesus do things that don't have ordinary explanations. And still, on the night before everything falls apart, Philip raises his hand and says what everyone else in the room is probably thinking but too afraid to say out loud.

"Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied."

That's it. That's the whole ask. Just show us. Make it clear, unmistakable. Give us something we can hold onto without having to negotiate with our own doubt every single time.

And the thing is, Philip, isn't being foolish. He isn't failing some test of faith. He's the bravest person in the room, because he's the one willing to say what everybody else is actually feeling.

And what everybody’s feeling is this: “We're frightened and disoriented, and we'd really appreciate it if God would stop being subtle for five minutes and give us a neon sign or something.”