Good

“And Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”” Matthew 17:4

Good – Poor Peter.  He had lots of emotion but not too much understanding.  The Greek word here is kalos.  It means “beautiful, harmonious and balanced”.  Jesus takes the three disciples up on the mountain.  There they see him transfigured, standing with Moses and Elijah.  And Peter says, “Oh, what a great feeling.  This is so cool.  Say Jesus, don’t you think it would be a good idea to put up some memorial here.  Then we could always remember what a great time we had together.  Why, if you like, I’ll make three markers, one for each important man.”  Peter was focused on the emotional high – and he misses the fundamental truth of what he was seeing.

Read the next two verses.  God speaks and everything changes.  The disciples are scared to death and fall on their faces in submission.  Suddenly they realize that all of this has nothing to do with feeling good.  They are in the presence of the Almighty.  They have been culpably unaware that they are on holy ground.  Now things are not so “good”.  That wonderful feeling of harmony is replaced with fear.

What happened to Peter is common to us.  We go for the spiritual high.  “What a great sermon!  Oh, the choir was so uplifting!  Didn’t you just feel God’s presence in church today?”  But we are no closer to understanding than Peter.  The beauty of it all seduces us until suddenly we realize that it is not about us, about our feelings or about memorials to our experiences.  Suddenly we realize that God is here and we see through the eyes of Isaiah, “Woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips.”  We come face to face with the reality that God is holy and I certainly am not.  Our emotional high is replaced with fear, awe and submission.  What else can we do in front of the All Powerful One?

What about you?  Has your experience of “religion” replaced your awe for the Creator?  Have you set you heart on memorials of emotional harmony?  Or are you falling on your face and saying, “God, be gracious to me for I am a sinner.”

The 24-hour action:  For the next 24 hours I will seek God in the valleys of my life, not just on the mountaintops.