I heard a sermon six years ago, at a conference, in which the speaker talked about seeing something magnificent and being left speechless and weeping. I never buy copies of sermons, but I bought that one. Every few months, I pull out that archaic cd and and listen to it again. I listen because I want that feeling so desperately--that awe, that absolute adoration of something so much bigger than I could ever be. He was talking about Mount Rainier, but really he was talking about the two angels in Isaiah chapter six; the ones who circumference the throne all day long, every day, shouting: Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the Whole Earth is filled with Your Glory!

I have lost my first love, I know this. Misplaced, shoved around, lost, all the same things. Somewhere along the way First Love has became disappointed love and then forgotten love and then shoved away love.

A friend said recently that to dwell on mountain-top experiences of God, or to always wish for them, is a dangerous thing because we forget that God exists in every experience, whether our awe is present or not. His glory is always apparent. In other words, even first loves turn into long loves eventually and it is all just as sweet, just as meaningful.

But I have missed this present help, this tangible knowledge of His goodness, and these holy moments.

When I say to someone that my hope for this season is that I end up with a wakeup call, a very physical penetration of the gospel into my heart, I don't expect it to come in the ways it comes. I am humbled by the ways in which it comes. I am surprised that I have been waiting for a Mount Rainier moment (or, like Elijah, a fire, earthquake, or wind), and He comes through sermons on church discipline and a study on the first few chapters of Genesis. I am surprised that He comes over coffee with a friend and in waking up in this peaceful home. I am sitting in the back row of church and He comes through a stranger's hand on my shoulder and my tears in response. He comes through in the hand-me-down supplies for screenprinting and He comes through the first mountain I've hiked since I wrecked my knee. He comes through work and rest and through the long love.

The angels, Louie Giglio said, are not waiting for the magnificent being on the throne to start being extraordinary or astounding (though He is always is), they just do their job, every day, from eternity, through eternity: Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, the Whole Earth, every moment, every pain, every joy, every toil, every motion, all of it, it's all filled with Your Glory.