Jeremy L. Berg

Part of my Advent sermon series on the Transfiguration, here’s a another excerpt pertaining to our fictional character named Amanda who has been given an extended personal retreat in her Great Uncle Eli’s mountain cabin. Amanda will have experiences similar to the disciples on the Mt of Transfiguration in Luke 9. Join us Sundays at 5PM in-person for the sermons that accompany Amanda’s journey.

AMANDA’S JOURNAL ENTRY 2

“As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning” (Luke 9:29).

This morning I packed a lunch, grabbed my Bible and decided to hike down to the lake that shimmers so brightly and alluringly from up above. The trail was long and winding, and it took a good hour to get down to the rocky shore. Plenty of time to kick the rust off my lukewarm prayer life. 

I began as I usually do. “Dear God, it’s me again. Sorry I’ve been so distracted lately.” I poured out my heart for a bit, the usual list of burdens and preoccupations. My job. My moodiness. My frustration with others. The number of kids activities I’m trying to juggle. As I opened my heart to God, I realized again how one-sided our conversations tend to be. I push away the fear that sometimes rises there may not even be Anyone listening on the other end. If God was listening, I still had to admit that I am tired of doing all the talking. I don’t just want to believe God is real and He cares for me. More than ever, I want to see and experience Him in a new and more profound way than ever before. 

Just as I was thinking/praying such things, the forest grew very thick and dark around me. The canopy of enormous pines blocked out the sun, and it suddenly felt like nighttime around me. A cold shiver ran up my spine. My  physical surroundings now matched the dark landscape of my soul. I longed light. The uneasy feeling that overcome me led me to pray a prayer that sounded more like one of the Psalms than one of my usual halfhearted mutterings. 

God, why do you hide yourself from me? 

Why is the darkness more real than your Light? 

Why do my prayers seem like poorly made paper airplanes, flying up a few feet only to quickly crash to the ground? 

I want to see you, feel your presence, experience your warmth, and walk in your bright light. 

God, why do you hide yourself from me? 

As long as I live, I will never forget what happened next. As I continued walking through the dark wood toward the lake, the trail led me through a cave like tunnel. The tunnel grow darker and darker until I reached the halfway point, but then a light began to grow bright and brighter from the other end. As I neared the exit, the light became so dazzlingly bright that I had to shield my eyes. 

Exiting the cave tunnel I saw that the light was magnified because the cave opening was at the very edge of the lake, with the rays of the sun dancing off the water. Squinting my eyes and temporarily blinded by the light, I climbed onto a large rock that was warm from the sun. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the bright morning sun, I was overcome with a warm inner feeling of God’s loving presence. 

Words fail to capture the next 30 minutes or so of a kind of prayer and communion with God I have never experienced before. Jesus did not appear before me in dazzling light, but his glory and presence seemed to illuminate everything around me. His glory shimmered in the waves of the lake, in the flight of an eagle overhead, and in the warmth of the sun’s rays on my back. Most of all, in the overwhelming, undeniable sensation that God was in that moment breathing on me and rekindling a fire in my cool, damp soul. As I was praying, my image of God’s appearance changed from a distant shadowy silhouette of a face turned away, to a face full of love with attentive eyes and a reassuring smile.

What if all of my quiet times with God could be so electric and real? What if my prayers felt less like a floppy paper airplanes crashing into the carpet, and more like bright bolts of lightning flashing across the sky? 

As I sat on the rock eating my lunch, my eyes sore from squinting, I remembered Uncle Eli’s strange note and his words, “It can get dazzlingly bright on the mountain, so be sure to pack your sunglasses.” 

“As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning” (Luke 9:29).