God Moments

Yesterday some women were sharing their “God Moments”. Each one had amazing moments when they knew the powerful presence of God.

He puts His image in every human being and therefore it only makes sense that no one is excluded from having those experiences of feeling and knowing God, where you get a glimpse of who He is, and know the power of some One beyond yourself. Do they have to reveal Truth? Maybe just knowing it is God is the deepest truth of all.

What are those moments in your lifetime? What did you see? What did you feel? As I write those questions I wonder if it is arrogant of me to even ask them. God moments are impossible to neatly package and present. They are wild and holy and are indelibly fingerprinted on your soul. My eyes will never fully see or understand your God moments just as your eyes and heart can never know all the nuances in mine. They are preciously individual.

It was one of those pristine winter days in Alberta. The temperature was hovering around –20 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, only the unbroken blue and the silence that comes with the absence of wind and traffic. Lake Louise rolls out for a mile from the Chateau, the Rockies rise up on either side of her and at the end of her sits a glacier. Every so often the groaning and cracking of the glaciers’ slow movements forward echo like gunshots across the lake.

The snow crunched beneath my cross-country ski boots as I walked from the parking lot to the lake. Skis over my shoulder, poles in hand, my upper torso kept warm with layers of handknit sweaters that would breath with my body heat. It was cold, my feet and hands quickly became numb so pushing off quickly was essential.
A blanket of fresh snow glistened, fresh, untouched, unmarked, inviting me to be the first to tread across it. Once my skis were on, sunglasses protecting my eyes, I headed out, alone, onto the lake. The depth of the lake covered by another deep layer of snow and ice. God’s love is layers deeper than I can see. The mountains are like the arms of the Almighty stretched wide inviting me to cross the expanse. I found intimacy in the expanse of this one dot in the Universe. Like a doxology rising inside I am whispering “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all that is within me, praise his holy name”. This was my trail to blaze, my path to forge as I headed out and built a steady rhythm. Breath in, cold air, exhale warm air – ice forms on headband. Flexing my feet and hands as I bend and then rise and the blood warms my extremities.

It is impossible to worry when cross-country skiing. I am totally present in that place, focusing on a steady rhythm while being aware of the whiskey jacks singing in the pines, of the deer that quietly step out of the tress, and enjoying the symphony that plays in my heart and head. Then Abba spoke: “this lake is like a valley – it leads to the base of the mountain. Pushing through the valley, forging paths in the unknown and uncharted places leads to the climb of the mountain and then you stand on the mountain top. Push through the valley because a mountain top experience lies ahead. Soak in the mountain top euphoria to gather courage for the next valley. And I will be with you every step of the way.”

God’s love, though is ever and always, eternally present to all who fear him.
Psalm 103:17 Msg

God, my God, how great you are! Beautifully, gloriously robed, dressed up in sunshine, and all heaven stretched out for your tent.
Psalm 104:1-2 Msg