Eternal Moments

Today I was driving down the road and a rush of memory washed over me. It was a sad wave of sorts, somewhat nostalgic. I was thinking back on a season in my life when I was able to teach and preach on a consistent basis. Those moments were precious to me. Not because I was good at it, though I was, but rather because they were eternal moments in my life.

Eternal moments? Yes, that's my term for them. They come in many shapes and styles, but the bottom line of an eternal moment is simply this-- you are aware of something so much bigger than yourself. In the case of those moments where I was allowed to preach the Word, and teach the Bible, I was aware of my purpose. There is a lyric in a song that sums up a perfect description of that purpose. It says, "I would give the world to tell Your story, because I know that You called me, I know that You called me. I've lost myself for good within your promise, I won't hide it, I won't hide it. Jesus, I believe in You And I would go to the ends of the earth"

Every time I sing that song, it's as though it speaks to the deepest part of my soul-- a eternal place inside of me. I've had other eternal moments. When I held each of my bioligical children in my arms when they were newly born. With my adopted son, I shared two very specific eternal moments-- when he cried out to me in the night on the night he was born. I stood over his crib in the hospital and I fell in love with him. The day that we signed his adoption papers and I knew he was finally mine, and I understood something about the heart of God that I never really comprehended before that moment.

Eternal moments.

Not all of them were that profound, many were in what seemed to be casual conversations at first, but then they take a turn, and suddenly we were speaking of profound truth. I had opportunity to share a word of encouragement from God's Word, or shared a part of my testimony to offer light in someone else's darkness. In the moment it's as though heaven's curtain is drawn back and the distance between the two seem very small, perhaps even nonexistent. In those moments I not only feel very near to God, but I actually sense that I am a part of Him.

Moments when I was writing my novels, I sensed eternal moments. Times when the writing seemed to do itself, times of anointing. There have been times like that on thi blog for me as well. Times of worship, times of prayer- they too sometimes present themselves as eternal moments, the veil between the temporal and the eternal fades.

Sometimes the road between these eternal moments seems too long, and the journey is dry and difficult. Sometimes I think when you can know and remember the eternal moments, it exacerbates the evidence of the dry and the difficult. You find yourself torn between pressing on to find yourself in the midst of another eternal moment, and wanting to give up and lament the distance between them.

The truth, I suppose, is all our moments are eternal ones when we belong to Christ. Whether the veil stands or draws back, every moment is a part of our eternity. Every step is a step closer to Him. It doesn't matter whether we feel the nearness of eternity and the God who lives in it, the Lord is at hand. Every moment we walk with Him or toward Him is an eternal moment. Sometimes He gives us the privlege of sensing it rather than just the ability to know it. Other times the feeling isn't there and we are asked to continue on-- in faith.

When you feel the eternal moment, I encourage you, stop, take it in, hold on and experience all of it that you can. Then continue forward, in faith-- know that this moment too, is eternal. Christ is with you, God is very near-- now and into eternity.