A testimony, in order to be true to its unmitigated reliance upon the Atonement of Jesus Christ, must accept the indefensible weakness imposed upon it by its own boundless certainty.

The sign-seeker finds this prospect of weakness and dependence impossible to accept. In contrast to the humble submission needed for a testimony, every search for a sign is motivated by a desire for mastery and control.  To look for a sign is, like an adulterer, to want to be in control. To look for a sign is to say, in effect, that you are unwilling to take the risk that a testimony's objective weakness demands.  It expresses an unwillingness to cede control to God.  "We will participate," the sign-seekers say, "but only on our own terms and only if we are in control of the evidence."  Sign-seeking misses not only the point of a testimony, but the whole logic of a saving relationship with God: it fails to submit its will to his.  Saving truths, insofar as they are distinct from knowledge of actual facts, always take the form of a testimony.  They are always centered on the task of bearing the world-opening possibilities that God wishes to bestow.

Adam S. Miller, Rube Goldberg Machines, pg. 69