Who else among the gods is like you, O Lord? who is … like you—so awesome in splendor, performing such wonders?
Exodus 15:11

Most of us have been in the presence of the powerful at one time or another. Whether the power is that of wealth or spiritual influence or political will, we know it when we see it.

When I was eleven years old, I went with a Salvation Army officer to a luncheon with Billy Graham. I have a press photo of me, a nerdy kid with glasses, shaking hands with the man who has preached the gospel to more people than anyone else in history.

When I was thirteen, I attended the church where then-governor Ronald Reagan occasionally worshiped. You could tell the Sundays he was there: A cadre of bodyguards spaced themselves throughout the sanctuary. In their black suits and earphones they stood out from the casually dressed California worshipers like crows in a flock of seagulls.

When I was twenty-one and a student in Paris, my brother and I went to the Champs-ElysÉes ...