I sat with a friend at breakfast and our conversation turned easily to our thoughts of God, the grandeur and majesty of who He is, and His obvious fingerprints all over our lives and the lives of many we knew. Our sharing became very animated and intense as our awareness of God was given distinction. A reality comes in those moments that is almost tangible as two hearts share in what I call, a “God-moment.” I am very aware that I am one who longs for those tangible moments with God, and I am also aware that I cannot build my faith on them, because faith chooses to believe what is not tangible. And yet, God still gives them. He gives, but we can still look for them, and we can even help to create them.
Our congregation is growing in its ability to bring physical expression to our worship. For some, that is a bit uncomfortable, but for others, it is a growing freedom to communicate the intensity of the heart in those God-moments so full of gratitude. Gratitude for His attributes of sovereignty and wisdom, or for His compassionate love offering forgiveness to lives broken by sin, or for His love bringing comfort and hope in the darkness of life’s tragedies. God–moments. In the hug of a toddler, in the snow-capped mountains that line the horizon after a southern California rain, in the delicate petals of a rose, in the prodigal who comes back home, in the provision of necessities when finances are stretched. We look. We see. We experience. And we know. God is real and He is touching our world. He is making Himself known to me.
I delight in the God-moments when His Word is alive and it speaks with clarity, often a clarity I haven’t seen before. God-moments agonize in prayer and God-moments open the recesses of my heart to Him. God-moments are energized to give, to let go, or to move forward. God-moments infuse the ordinary and bring the miraculous. We share them with a congregation of others or with a friend or with a child, or in the solitude of quietness. Wherever or whenever we experience them, they bring that distinction that God is, and God is doing. They eclipse the temporary and magnify the eternal. They enlarge my understanding and they diminish doubt.
I take the hand of one who is defeated or sorrowful, feeling confused or unloved, and I lead her to the God who longs to embrace her, and my God-moment shouts with an indescribable joy. God-moments can fill our day or God-moments can be merely the occasional, “Aha!” Father, give us eyes to see You. Give us ears to hear You. Give us hearts that are sensitive to Your touch. Give us an awareness that fills our day and says, You are with us. Your presence is real. Your fingerprints are all over my life and the lives of others. You will never leave us or forsake us, and You are constantly, always, giving.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Psalm 118:1-9; Hebrews 13:5b,6,8,9)
