Nothing feels more real than the Tuesday morning after a three day weekend, don’t you agree? The alarm feels more painful, the misplaced-yet-urgently-needed thingamabobs are more distressing, the moods are grumpier. Ugh. Welcome back to the real world.
Lately I’ve been questioning what we mean by “real world” though. Everything we see and feel and experience is just so immediate and urgent, but is all this really real?
Think about those moments of sudden clarity that we all have had. The teacher announces a pop test. Your child calls to say “I’ve made a mistake.” The cop turns his sirens on behind you. The biopsy is positive. All of a sudden you realize what is real- at least in this little corner of your world. Why can’t we live there all the time? Why does it take a cop’s siren to get me realize I was speeding, or a positive biopsy to appreciate my health?
As we have spent the last few weeks focusing on who God is, I feel his nearness in a new, more real way, and the concept of “real world” continues to shift. It doesn’t have to take bad news for us to realize the truth. There is a dimension- unseen but among us- in which God dwells. I think about the way I felt as a child when I was home in my room but Mom was cooking dinner just on the other side of the door. Nearby, though out of sight .
So this morning as we rush around dealing with all the little emergencies of the day, there is something else very real happening at the same time. Isaiah had a vision of what it’s like.
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 stood seraphim, each having 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 out to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts;
all the earth is full of His glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook,
and the temple was filled with smoke. (Isaiah 6:1-5)
Whatever I am dealing with, whatever I am feeling at any particular moment. In that moment, there are also creatures declaring the goodness of God. In that moment, the earth is still full of his glory. In that moment, I am his and he is mine. I can just turn, and he is there. And that is real.
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