What are God moments? They are moments when we experience that oneness with God, creation, or other people.

I feel that oneness a lot in nature. Those moments when I encounter an owl or a deer or a fox that looks me right in the eye. Or seeing a breathtaking sunset or rainbow or spectacular clouds.

You can read the post, which I’ve tweaked a little, or watch the video.

It’s in those moments when we realize that we are all connected to each other. I experience God moments, particularly with strangers. One of those moments happened the other day.

This Moment Starts with a Dog

I had reached out to my friend, Barbara to meet with her at one of our local parks. The first time I met Barbara was in the Stephen Ministry class I was leading at church. Out of the class grew our friendship.

Barbara trained Labrador Retrievers to be support dogs. We had a Labrador named Wilson. When we were going on a trip with our choir, we didn’t want to put Wilson in a kennel. Barbara offered to watch him.

At the time she had three other labs. While we were gone, she would text us pictures and send us videos to let us know how Wilson was enjoying his time with the other dogs.

Any time we went away after that, we told Wilson that he was going to puppy camp. He always enjoyed his time with Barbara.

Wilson died a few Christmases ago, and Barbara is now just down to one dog. When I texted her to go to the park I asked if a puppy would be coming along. She didn’t say yes or no, she just said, hmmmm.

When I arrived, I didn’t know if I would see her lab, Seeker or not. When I walked up to the park bench, there she was with Seeker by her side.

Seeker is a beautiful lab. He’s close to 90 pounds and just as sweet as could be. We walked around the lake and then we came back to the park bench and sat down.

This God Moment is Completed with a Boy

A family of five children walked by. One of the boys was tall. He was lanky, and he had glasses on. He seemed kind of awkward.

The father said, “My son has a learning disability and he’s really deathly afraid of dogs. He wants to overcome that fear. So is it okay that he pet your dog?”

In unison, we said, “Of course!” And so this boy reached out his orange, Cheeto-stained fingers to pet Seeker. Seeker was very eager to be petted, doing a full body wag.  

The boy was hesitant at first, but soon had the courage to pet Seeker on the head. You could see how he was still hesitant.

I kept telling him, “I know that he’s a big dog, but he’s a really sweet dog. You don’t need to be afraid.”

He kept reaching out and petting Seeker’s head. I told the boy that he was very brave.

The father thanked us, and the family moved on. Barbara and I looked at each other and said, “That was such a God moment.”

The young boy wasn’t told by his family that he had to overcome his fear. He had  chosen to overcome that fear. It was a beautiful thing to watch how brave this young boy was to take that one step, that reaching out his hand to pet the dog to conquer his fear.

We’re all afraid about certain things, especially when we step outside our comfort zones and try something new. We feel like we won’t be able to do it. Or we ask ourselves; who am I to do this, or what will people think, or I don’t know how, or this hasn’t worked out before, why will it now?

These Are Teachable Moments

It’s in these little God moments that we are taught something when we pay attention. In the case of this young boy, it was witnessing courage and kindness. As he continues to come in contact with other dogs and reaches out to pet them, he will become less and less afraid. Dog owners will offer their kindness.

Do you have any God moments to share? I’d love for you to share them in the comment section below.

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