Some can remember when Lou Gehrig delivered his “Luckiest Man Alive” speech, I have seen it on youtube.
Many remember the celebration following the victory in the Super Bowl by the New Orleans Saints. Following the horrible Hurricane Katrina, the Saints became America’s team.
When things like this happen, we are lifted to a different world. We have a “spiritual experience” so to say.
We have all felt something like this, whether at a concert, conference, sporting event, etc.
This is known as “whooshing up” or the “whoosh effect”.
C.S. Lewis speaks of these experiences as faint echoes of the real thing.
In his book “Surprised by Joy,” he says this:
…of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again.
Lewis speaks like this concerning giving his heart fully to God. The journey we all take in finding and growing in Christ should lead us to have a “whoosh effect.” We should be taken to a new level in our spiritual lives.
There is something great out there ready to be loved and give love. Many known Him as God.
The joys experienced on this earth are just a shadow of what God has in store.
“To give our hearts means to find our heart’s desire in God, to be so given and so taken that we seek to do nothing more than immerse our lives in experiencing him as God.” – James Emery White
Have you had a “Whoosh Effect”?
(Thoughts and Quotes from this blog come from “Travelers Guide to the Kingdom by James Emery White; Ch. 1 – The Eagle and Child Pub, Oxford, England; You Are Converted)
Justin Cherry 