Every once-in-a-while I have a momentary awareness of unseen but very real spiritual activity. It usually happens at night.
Last night, after pleasant patio dinner with all of our children and our one (napless and rather bleary-eyed) three-year-old grandson I couldn’t get to sleep. For no good reason I was simply awake. So, as I do in those situations, I prayed.
After a while, however, I lost all mental focus and became frustrated over my sleeplessness. So, as I do in that event, I took my bedside novel into the guest room to read.
Success! I went back to sleep. Ahhh.
“Were you up last night?” asked my son Brian as we puttered over our morning breakfast and coffee. Busted, I thought. Then we compared our nocturnal notes.
Here is his report: “I was dreaming…(details are not relevant)…and then I felt a presence in the room and air movement across my head. I got goose bumps and my hair stood up. I heard a voice – it sounded like it came from the hall – whispering ‘Pssst! Judy and Brian are awake.'”
I’m not sure what to make of all of that except that today I have a heightened awareness of a spiritual reality that I usually take for granted.
We think this world is “real” because we observe and interact with people and objects and ideas using our minds and our physical senses. Certainly, the day-to-day stuff of life is plenty real. But there is more. Much more.
As a Christian I believe ultimate reality is something, actually it is Someone, altogether different, better, and far beyond our material existence.
The Bible delivers tantalizing whispers of spiritual activity, angels, demons and spiritual battles. We are given just enough to understand that there is a larger reality somehow involved in and around the events of this world.
The interplay between our material world and the larger ultimate reality is much like the blurry boundary between sleepy dreams and wakeful consciousness. There is a brief moment in which the two are one.
After my discussion with Brian, I picked up my Bible and read the next chapters in my yearly reading plan. These words from Jesus resonated with me this morning:
“Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.” Revelation 16:15
Jesus is our ultimate reality. His righteousness covers our shameful state, and he is the everlasting link between heaven and earth.
How have you experienced the connection between the physical and spiritual realities in which we live?
Are you awake?
Connecting Dots...to God 
This is so beautiful – and so true: “The interplay between our material world and the larger ultimate reality is much like the blurry boundary between sleepy dreams and wakeful consciousness. There is a brief moment in which the two are one.”
I have had a few of those “thin places” moments where eternity invaded my temporal, limited experience, and they’ve served as bookmarks in my life. I reference them when my own earth-bound experience insists on defining me and my outcomes. We were, to borrow C.S. Lewis’ apt phase, “made for another world”, and those experiences remind me of that truth.
I love this, Judy! Those are special moments, indeed, when we sense the Spirit so close and “ultimately real” (the REAL real, as it were). I’m pondering the “awake” message–do you suppose that’s why, as people get older, they sleep less and less?? God bless you BIG, always–love, sis Cj
I’m really not sure what to think about the awake comment. I am prone to over-interpret:). One thing is sure – I am awake more now than I used to be! Big blessings back to you, Caddo!
One of my favorite moments was when I felt the Lord Jesus was going to walk into my bedroom one morning while I was praying. I felt his Holy presence fast approaching. Now, most of us, would be delighted to see the Lord Jesus face to face or that’s what we think when we’re not presented with the opportunity, right?
I put a blanket over my head and hid myself. “I can’t see you today. I have too much sin in my life right now,” I said.
Then, I felt His presence leave. That experience was 18 years ago and I’ve never had another one like it.
You’re in good company I think, Larry. Most episodes of people meeting The Lord in the Bible seem to result in similar responses. He’s with us, though, whether we recognize him or not.
yes, quite often! The supernatural world is much more than the natural.