Finding God in the Moment

Why Some Find Him and Others Don't

In my years of serving the Lord in pastoral ministry I've had many people come to me after a service and share their experience. Interestingly enough the experience of each individual is as different as the nose on their face from the other people who shared in the same service.

Some people experienced God's tangible presence touching them. Others heard God speaking to them encouragement. Others heard God correcting or convicting them. Others experienced God in the time of prayer or the message rather than during the music of worship. Still others didn't sense God at all; to them the music was dead or boring, the prayer time was drawn out and lifeless, and the message was just long, dry, boring, and we're just counting the minutes until this windbag will put us out of our misery and end this service.

Funny thing is, this varied experience with God is not isolated to a "church service". People have a similarly varied experience with God at Bible studies, Cell Group meetings, during devotions, at home, at work, at a picnic.

How is it that a group of people can share an event/moment and walk away with a completely different perspective or experience?

The answer has less to do with externals and everything to do with internal issues.

Many of us go through life riding on the waves of emotions and allowing them to dictate and direct our attitudes and choices. Many of us go through life never exercising the spiritual and mental discipline of guarding our hearts and thoughts.

For a while now I struggled because I would attend a religious service where they would be playing older worship music. I found myself having a bad attitude that they would choose such archaic expressions of celebration and cling to such old forms of faith that weren't effective or modern and then as a musician I also found myself being critical of the music itself and the quality of musicianship.