This is the 26th post in my series "Asking Myself," in which I weekly ponder one question posed in Teresa Blythe's rich book, 50 Ways to Pray. You can find the start of the series here and last week's post here. The first nine posts focused on theological musings, while posts 10 to 25 prayerfully consider the specific questions Jesus posed in the New Testament. This post begins a new theme: Questions on Spirituality.
Q: When have you felt God's presence most acutely in your life?
First off, I have to get something off my chest. The wording of Blythe's question made me feel "less-than." Specifically, the terms "felt" and "most acutely" trigger a bit of sadness for me because despite my love of the "still, small voice" in 1 Kings 19:13, I start thinking of and comparing myself to those more awe-inspiring moments of God's presence recorded throughout scripture. There's Moses and the burning bush, Samuel and his audible midnight commission, Jacob's ladder, Mary's angelic visit, Elizabeth's womb acrobatics, the upper room and its rushing wind, Stephen's near-to-death heavenly vision and Paul's blind-struck road to Damascus.
I definitely think stories like these more than qualify as genuine experiences of God's undeniable presence, but they aren't like my experience. I've never had a burning bush or bright light or dislocated hip socket, or dancing fetus ... well... at least not as a result of a heavenly encounter.
I'm not sure why I feel compelled to compare my own experience or set my expectations on these sorts of "acute" experiences of the felt-presence of God. I don't know whether it's purely the pages of scripture filtered through my mind's eye that cause me to covet a similarly supernatural experience, or if somewhere along the line my "presence theology" was formed by well-intentioned pastors and leaders who had their own checklists for what qualifies as "feeling" "God's presence" "acutely"... but there's a tension in this question for me.