In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For lama man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the lord Almighty.”
Character Check When was the last time I sensed the presence of God?
In Business Terms Peak Moments. That’s the phrase Outside magazine (October 1998) used to describe an “outsized moment, some breakthrough, I-just-didn’t-realize instant when your relationship with the natural world pivots, expands, and is forever transformed.”
Outside published six one-page accounts of people who came face to face with the awesomeness or terribleness of nature. For example, one firefighter, David Guterson, describes how he was almost burned alive by a raging forest fire. “Chased by the fire, I ran like a madman, and then splashed into a low creek, where I drank, doused my head, and vomited. A revelatory moment, of sorts. I had been fighting fire all that summer, but I hadn’t yet reckoned with its elemental power. Now I understood its deification of the terrible god of annihilation.”
That reckoning changed Guterson forever. He wrote, “It was as though I had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. My corporeality was clarified. I was no different from a rump roast, a ham. I was 19, and made of tender flesh.” In an instant, Guterson saw the world differently. Reality shifted, and he was never the same.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah also had a peak moment, when he saw the Lord “seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple … ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips.'” Isaiah had entered into the terrible and awesome presence of holy God.
I am asking God to give me every once in a while a peak moment, a glimpse into the mystery and presence of God. I want the life-altering, reality-defining experience of knowing God.
—David L. Goetz
Something to Think About We pay God honor and reverence, not for his sake (because he is of himself full of glory to which no creature can add anything), but for our own sake. – Thomas Aquinas
