My child said she saw an angel.

And so, children sometimes peel back the curtain of heaven for us to quickly glimpse before the curtain is closed again. All we have left is a memory. What is our response to hearing stories that seem to push us into the realm of the divine, whether we want to go there or not?

Will the divine moments that we hear about be wasted on us?

There are three typical responses to another’s spiritual experiences: we become blind, jealous, or thirsty.

Most commonly, we become blind. Like a beautiful pristine camping spot, one mountain range further than we usually travel on our summer holidays, we won’t go there. It is not within the realm of our routine.

And so we are unable to see.

WAS there ever a pristine camping spot one mountain range over, we wonder, years later? WAS it an angel she said she saw? And then we are distracted again by our lunch.

The second most frequent response to stories of divine encounters is jealousy.

Instead of falling on our knees in worship and petitioning for a similar outpouring of the divine in our parched lives, some of us will compare. The soil of our hearts hardens just a little bit. That didn’t happen to ME.

They must think they are SPECIAL, we reason. They must assume they are MORE SPECIAL than ME. Often, that idea hadn’t crossed their minds.

But we’ve already tossed the implications of the divine moment in self-righteous indignation.

The third response, that very few travel, is a recognition of our spiritual thirst.

This heart response is gas for our car. We understand that each of us is offered an adoption certificate into the family of God, which comes with a royal inheritance. And from that identity, we can petition the Father, on our knees before Him, and ask, “Can You please pour out the divine in my life, God?”

We can beg Him for water because we see another who seems to have found a drink.

He always has more water.

I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God.

The Message

God, soften the soil of our hearts equally through the encounters we experience in ourselves and those we hear about from others. Thank you that we can come to You with our doubts too and that You meet us exactly where we are. I pray we stop trying to stuff You into a box.

Keep waking us to a deeper understanding of your love, I pray.