When awe is absent

After the Pentecost, and after Peter assembled the first Christian megachurch by preaching to the multitudes, we read in the book of Acts: "Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles." I've always been suspicious of people who exuberantly declare their awe at God, and doubly suspicious of people who try to elicit the same emotion from me. Genuine awe, in my limited experience, doesn't inspire chattiness. Then again, I can't expect my inner workings to be true of everyone; awe inspires some people to spout praise, just as it leaves me dumbfounded. The cripple whom Peter and John healed, after all, responded by walking and leaping and praising God. John, on the other hand, didn't seem to have much to say after the miracle. That gives me some solace, when I encounter someone who regards logorrhea as a universal spiritual gift.

I don't often feel awe. I'm aware that I should. The solution isn't to manufacture it, to work myself up into an emotional state. Nor is it a matter of finding a "spirit-filled" church to which I can outsource my emotionalism. That's not a knock on being filled with the Holy Spirit of God, mind you, but a reflection of how I, at least, am constituted. I ponder.

The first time I heard "Trading My Sorrows" was in a Pentecostal church. In the row in front of me was a woman using a cane. She was overweight, and appeared to be in poor health, though she wasn't older than perhaps fifty. She sat while everyone else stood and sang. Her husband leaned down to sing in her ear the verse about trading one's sickness. I think he wanted her to sing "yes Lord, yes Lord, yes Lord, yes," and somehow dredge up a self-healing.

Maybe that works for some people, but the empirical reality is that the Lord doesn't always heal these bodies, no matter how much we chant: "yes Lord, yes Lord." If he wouldn't remove Paul's mysterious thorn, or spare children from being devoured by lions in the Roman arenas, we shouldn't think that securing release from asthma or cancer or a bad marriage is just a few hearty affirmations away. For many of us, it's a lifetime away, because while the Lord will set all things aright, there is no promise that he will do so for everyone in this life.

This doesn't make it any less true, however, that God is "the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and lovingkindness." An awesome God, thoughtfully considered, should inspire awe. But how I feel -- and perhaps this is true for you as well -- is determined by what I believe. My lack of awe stems from my habit of relegating the word and the Word to tertiary status. I am often not in awe because I am often not thinking about the Lord. I fall into the trap of confining "God time" to a church service or a prayer, and keeping it entirely separate from the rest of "my" time. I think that kind of disintegration prohibits spiritual fullness. "Be strong and courageous," the Lord said to Joshua. "Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

He is with me, but I am not always with Him.