“That Other Place”

Copyright  by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

Sometimes we need a refuge from our own lives. We may become so overwhelmed by the distractions of this world, and so troubled by the darkness of our own response to those distractions, that we need to have a place to go that somehow transcends everything for a while. It is then when a visceral experience of the highest reality, God’s presence, can become that desperately needed sanctuary, a retreat during times of deep stress in our pilgrimage through this life.

All of us tend to get caught up in situations that appear to be all-important and permanent when in actuality they are unimportant (or at least less important) and temporal. We may experience oppressive fits of anxiety, or obsession, or dark desire that seem for a while to be all we know or ever will know. These are internal conditions of the soul but they are often, perhaps always, triggered by the external condition of our present earthly home. Environmental stimuli are always vying for our attention and, in this fallen place, that stimuli can fill our vision with things we know in our hearts we must ultimately transcend. However, beyond that, we also know that in the meantime we often must find some safe harbor to enter for a while where they cannot come. The only place such a harbor is to be found is in the Lord and the things of the Lord. We most often seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness when the insanity of the world becomes too much for us to bear. We need some relief.

This relief manifests itself in many ways, but all are connected with an awareness of Christ. We may enter into this awareness through reading Scripture or through prayer, through worship or meditation or fellowship. We may come to know a sweet release without even consciously looking for it, such as when the Holy Spirit simply makes Himself known at some random, unexpected moment when we are doing nothing “spiritual” at all. However it occurs we know it is of Him in a moment because we come to a place of peace that we never knew before we knew the Prince of Peace.

Nothing is as much to be desired as entering into this condition, in getting to this location. Nothing is more fulfilling and refreshing than being recaptured by His love in real time and brought to what U2’s Bono has called “that other place”. Sometimes what we experience is as familiar as the spiritual equivalent of slipping on an old, warm garment that has comforted us many times in the past. At other moments our encounter with the ultimate reality of the Spirit is something new and exciting, a revelation of His goodness that we have never known before. In either case the things of this world really do become “strangely dim”. The eyes of our hearts have been refocused on what really matters and we are released from whatever it was that held our attention to our own hurt.

Such times are the spiritual birthright of every child of God. While we cannot make them permanent on this side of Heaven we can remember them when we find ourselves once again caught up in the distractions and troubles of this life. The “lesser realities” that compete for our earthly attention need not dominate our souls. Moreover, as we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord, we can experience His reality in ever deeper ways and for longer periods as well. That, too, is our birthright, the fruit of our continuing sanctification.

How unspeakably blessed we are to have available to us this ultimate refuge, one that is as real and enduring as the very heartbeat of our risen and eternal Savior.