MOMENTS OF AWE

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Physically he was not impressive. He would come into the classroom with an armful of books, pile them on the speaker’s stand and then he would be “off and running.” He brought the Old Testament to life. Wilbur Smith was my Old Testament teacher at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California. I also studied the Old Testament at Abilene Christian in Abilene, Texas. I had an afternoon class and this is the only class I ever struggled to stay awake in. What made the difference? Why was one class so exciting and the other so boring?

AWE! Wilbur Smith taught with passion and I sat on the edge of my chair. Awe is an old word that describes a profound spiritual experience.

Abraham J. Heschel was an extraordinary thinker who taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He died in 1972. He once said, “The loss of awe is the great block to insight. …The greatest insights happen in moments of awe.”

Ken Gire wrote, “Moments of awe are moments when we are the most vulnerable to grace. Without those moments, we are vulnerable to everything else.”