Encounters with Jesus along our trail
Like it or not, want it or not, prepare for it or not, the fact is the experiences of life change us from where we were before the experience to where we are after.
Such is the trail of life upon which we are all travelling. Sometimes even a single moment can change our whole world — news of major happenings in our world, the loss of a loved one, people experiencing trauma over flooding, fire and their devastating results; all this can shake the foundations of our understanding and our faith.
I like to go walking every day and recently I walked the Albion and Samson trail that connects Stellarton and New Glasgow. I was amazed with all the benches, built in memory of loved ones who had gone on before. Their names were inscribed on a metal plate placed by their families.
Further along I saw, for the first time, the beautiful memorial placed by the Leil family in memory of Pictou County’s angel, Amber Kirwan. I remember the tragic circumstances of her death and paused to have a prayer for her family and friends. It was during my walk and that prayer that suddenly I felt the presence of God.
It wasn’t the first time I’d had an encounter with God on the trail for He has always walked beside me my whole life and today was no exception. His presence was powerful and suddenly I remembered my own loss recently with the passing of my friend Ira. I remembered the two victims of the fire in Westville and prayed for their families as well. I knew Penny Duggan and her grandchildren who attended our church at times and grieved her passing in such a tragic manner.
What happens to us when we spiritually evolve and come to a new place of wisdom and understanding? Upon what trails of life are you travelling, and have you had an encounter recently with God?
In the book of Exodus, chapter 34:29-34 there is a graphic story of just this kind of life-changing event when Moses encounters and has a conversation with God on Mount Sinai. Moses is leading his people from slavery in Egypt to a new life in the Promised Land. He returns to his people with two tablets where God had laid out his expectations for His people in what we know as the Ten Commandments that were to become the foundation of all Western Law and which Jesus would summarize into two commandments which were to love God with all your hearts and secondly to love your neighbour as you love yourself.
The skin of Moses’s face was shining after his conversation with God and when Aaron and his people saw the shining face of Moses they were afraid and kept their distance. Moses, however, called them back and began to share his experience with God by putting a veil over his face so they would not be afraid. He would remove the veil again when he resumed talking to God.
In many ways we are just like Moses; we are veiled with each other as we hide our true form so that people cannot see through us. However, when we encounter God on the trail of our lives, there is no veil and everything about us is open and seen unfiltered by God.
For Moses’s second in command, Aaron and the people they led, the experience of talking to God for Moses had transfigured him and changed him in a way that was confusing and mysterious to them.
There is a passage from St. Luke’s Gospel, chapter 9:28-36 that has a similar kind of experience but with some differences as well. Jesus takes three of His disciples on a mountain to pray but as Jesus was praying His face shone like Moses but also His clothes became dazzling white. When they were all enveloped in a cloud this made them terrified. Then they heard a voice from the cloud saying: “This is my Son whom I have chosen; listen to him.” This event described in Luke is known as “The Transfiguration.” Jesus was transfigured by his encounter with Moses and Elijah and the voice of God, blessing Him and calling humanity to listen to his son. With Jesus Christ, there is no more veil; the veil is gone between us and God!
There is only one commandment this time: “Listen to him!” On your trail you will find Him if you seek Him and when you do have your encounter, then listen to Him for it is all about encountering God on the trail. It is about a spiritual experience of another dynamic, of living in a higher orbit, a transforming, transfiguring encounter that is life affirming, life enhancing, life enriching that will take you to a spiritual dynamic far beyond the mundane that cannot be overcome by the darkness.
Seek Him and find Him today. Others will notice your experience.
“In many ways we are just like Moses; we are veiled with each other as we hide our true form so that people cannot see through us. However, when we encounter God on the trail of our lives, there is no veil and everything about us is open and seen unfiltered by God.”