There is a problem with the expectation of the lightning bolt or shaking of the world religious experience as normal is that it sets up some difficulties:
1. It is dangerous for the everyday nature of faith. It can make us miss the simple and the unextraordinary ways of grace. It denies more subtle discernment of life’s revelations. Some revelations hit like the right answer to a crossword puzzle clue about a half hour after setting the puzzle aside. Some moments of absolute ordinariness reveal amazing truths without fanfare or thunderclap.
2. Chasing mountaintop moments can become a goal in and of itself, rather than a means of entrance into more or better service or mission or ministry. Adrenaline junkies understand this problem too well.
3. If the lightening strike epiphany is seen as the only way people are moved and touched and sent by God, then without it, people of faith may feel unworthy or uncalled or unsent.
I say this as a person with a high opinion of the Holy Spirit working in life. It can be at work in ways far beyond and far simpler than a mountaintop moment or being struck blind on the road to Damascus.
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