In Awe of Him

“Praise God!” It’s what we say when things go right. It’s what we say in church. It’s what we say when life is going great.

I’ve also heard the most Spirit-filled people say it when they are down. When life seems like it couldn’t get any more difficult.

I want to also find praise in the middle–because there is always a middle. The truth is our lives mostly take place in the middle.

There are high peaks on top of the mountains and low peaks in the valley, but I feel like I find myself halfway in-between those two points. It is those moments when I feel like I’m doing just okay: I’m not dragging myself through a difficult season and I’m also not basking in how perfect everything is falling into place. I’m just there.

These moments in the middle is where we have the opportunity to rejoice and praise in who God is. Not because He has just delivered us from the storm or because we just reached the summit of the mountain, but because He is there with us.

Last year, I visited St. Paul’s Basilica. Our tour guide called it “the lost monument of Rome.” Everyone wants to go to St. Peter’s Basilica in The Vatican, so Paul’s is visited less frequently.

It wasn’t on our itinerary, we just ended up there. Besides our group, there were few people in the large building. St. Peter’s Basilica was bustling with people, noisy and full. In St. Paul’s, it was quiet, still. I felt the presence of God in the stillness, in the magnificence of the building.

The basilica was built right over Paul’s burial site, and there was a bench where you could kneel in front of where he is buried. I knelt and closed my eyes. I couldn’t think of any prayer to utter, the only thing I could think of were the words God spoke to Moses: “I Am.”

I said those words back to Him: “You Are. You Are. You Are.”

It wasn’t the building, with priceless art, marble, and gold crafted into every corner or even the apostle buried below that triggered this awe. It was the Spirit Himself. I felt His presence in my very core. Even now, just the memory of it brings tears to my eyes.

What I have to remind myself is I don’t have to be across the world at a World Heritage Site to be in awe of God. He showed Himself to Moses in a bush. He guided the Israelites through the desert. He was born in a stable.

He meets us in every day life, in every day circumstances. And that is where we should praise Him as well: in our every day, for who He Is.

Always,

Emily