God Moments

Does everyone get God moments?

(Some of you are going to totally think I’m whacked out in this one. Eh. As if you didn’t think I’m whacked out over the whole Korean Drama thing. Like I care.)

I define God moments as those occasions where one is touched deeply by something vast and inexplicable; the purposes and reactions of the moment vary.

That doesn’t explain it well at all. For me, generally, it’s a moment of awareness that makes me go “OH”. It hits me in a place inside my heart that is never touched by anything else and I’m more often than not moved to prayer.

I can sense some of you squirming. I’m used to this, with the label of the “churchy” one in the family. J But I’m really interested to know if everyone gets these, identifies them as God moments and acts on them. I do not believe I’m the only one who gets these.

There are varying degrees of these moments for me. Very often – pretty much daily – I’m compelled to pray for someone or something. Understand, I’m asked to pray for a lot of people and situations, and I try hard to remember them all by name. I’m talking about when I am “inspired” to pray for someone or something not on that list. It gets plenty weird when I’m compelled to pray for someone I don’t know well, and it gets bleeping scary when I’m told to pray for myself. I worry that I’m going to get in a car accident or slip in the shower and crack my head open or something.

But then there are moments that have moved me to tears. Those moments I don’t really share with anyone – moments where time seems to change. Yeah, you’ve seen that in movies, where Keaneau Reeves stops and you hear this swoopy noise, and bullets go toward him in slow motion and he ducks them all while the camera pans around to get a 360 degree view of hot hot Keaneau Reeves.

Sorry, had something a little more earthy than a God moment there. <>

Interestingly enough, many of these moments are connected to songs for me. Don’t ask me why, ask God. It just is. Anyway, some time before Christmas, driving into work on route 7, a song I’d never heard came on – “Better Days” by the Goo Goo Dolls. Definitely a Christmas song, btw.

As I’m listening, I drive by an eclectic variety of people. People crossing the street, riding bicycles, waiting for rides, holding coffee, reading the paper, jogging, waiting for the bus with their children. And it happened. Time stood still. All those people were in slow motion. I’m looking around at them and feel this rising in my chest, and its like I can see every single one of them, even the people driving in their cars passing me, in front of me and around me. And I’m supposed to pray for them all. So I do. And then these words come on:

And it's someplace simple where we could live
And something only you can give
And that’s faith and trust and peace while we're alive
And the one poor child that saved this world
And there's 10 million more who probably could
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them

I was totally creeped out.

Who needed the prayers? Was it one person? Was it everyone? Was something horrific going to happen to the world and everyone at the same moment had this same feeling and there was this vast millisecond of communal world prayer to mitigate the disaster? Uhhhhmmmm – no. Didn’t happen.

But, if you were one of the people on route 7 that day <> hey. How ya doin’?