"There was a time when standing in the presence of the Holy and Sacred meant standing in the presence of great mystery. Worship and fear of God were intuitively experienced, not heady subjects teased out in thirty-minute lectures. God was truly awful -- full of awe -- and faith was marked by the kind of mystery that surpasses language." (1)
We find much spiritual astonishment and wonder in the book of Acts. You will always find these elements present when the Holy Spirit directs believing men and women.
On the other hand, you will not find astonished wonder among men and women when the Holy Spirit is not present. Engineers can do many great things in their fields, but no mere human force or direction can work the mysteries of God among men. If there is no wonder, no experience of mystery, our efforts to worship will be futile. There will be no worship without the Spirit.
If God can be understood and comprehended by any of our human means, then I cannot worship Him. One thing is sure. I will never bend my knees and say “Holy, holy, holy” to that which I have been able to decipher and figure out in my own mind! That which I can explain will never bring me to the place of awe. It can never fill me with astonishment or wonder or admiration. In sections of the church where there is life and blessing and wonder in worship, there is also the sense of divine mystery.
"Divine revelation is seeing the mystery. The mystery is everywhere." (2).
God speaks to us….
Who knows what He will say to me today,
or to you today,
or into the midst of what kind of unlikely moment He will choose to say it.
Not knowing is what makes today a holy mystery.
I know not how You’ll speak to me in the next few hours, Lord. Nor do I know what words of Scripture You’ll speak today, directly to this heart. Therein lies the holy mystery, the sacred ground, of this day.
Yet there is no mystery in that You will speak.
Will I hear You? Will I attend, anticipating You, Your voice, Your face, in the unexpected, the mundane, the rush of it all?
Or will my interior ruckus and clattering about cause me to miss You and Your still small voice?
But whether You’ll speak? And if Your words will fall on ready ears?
No, let there be no mystery in that at all.
“Behold, the LORD our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice…we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.” (3).
Lord, I take off my shoes, for today is Holy Ground. You will speak. The mystery is in the where and how…and what words You will have for me. Let me be hushed enough to hear the holy of today in the stars and in the wallpaper.
1. Bowles, Jon. Art and Faith : Reclaiming the Artistic Essence of the Church. Kansas City, MO: Nazarene Publishing House, 2012. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), 4.
2. Ibid, 8.
3. Deuteronomy 5:24, NIV.
