Unlikely Places

It is well known that John Wesley had an experience in which he found his heart "strangely warmed" in the evening of May 24, 1738 in a simple building on Aldersgate Street in London. Less well known is that earlier in the day Wesley attended St. Paul's Cathedral, whose beauty and grandeur you can see on a very minuscule scale here. (Do a Google Image search for "St. Paul's Cathedral, London" to see other views.)

I've made reference in a couple of posts to the late Reginald Mallett. I've been reading a collection of his sermons delivered at Lake Junaluska. Dr. Mallett elaborated on this historic day in Wesley's life in a sermon based upon the text of Acts 19.9-10, where St. Paul taught, argued, and preached for two years in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. There are times where the spirit of the age looks for God in certain places...places of grandeur and awe. Dr. Mallett writes:

The spirit of the age would say that John Wesley ought to have had his life-changing experience in St. Paul's Cathedral when he was there on May 24, 1738. The awesome masterpiece by Sir Christopher Wren was surely an appropriate setting for such a historic spiritual encounter. The Holy Spirit thought otherwise. That very evening in a simple room on Aldersgate Street, a work of grace occurred which caused the restless Anglican clergyman to feel his heart strangely warmed. In such an unlikely place, a fire began to burn in Wesley's life that set England and the world aglow.

To be sure, we cannot ignore the path that led Wesley to Aldersgate Street that evening; a path that included his visitation to St. Paul's Cathedral earlier in the day, where the anthem was from Psalm 130: "Out of the deep I have called unto Thee, O Lord - O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption, and He shall redeem Israel from all her sins." But Dr. Mallett is onto something in noting that God often reveals himself in the most unlikely of places and circumstances: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Calvary, walking on a road (Emmaus), a lecture hall, a small room.

I can resonate here. Some of the more special experiences in my life have come in places that the world would consider mundane: in the utility room (conversing with my parents on confessing my faith in Christ), driving down the road (listening to Smalltown Poet's rendition of 'Only Trust Him,' the hymn playing upon my public confession of faith to the church), sitting on a stump outside of a muddy cave (conversing for the first time with who would one day become my wife). There were certainly other encounters in perhaps more sublime circumstances that led to those experiences, but there is something profound, it seems to me, in the experience of God's grace in the everyday occurrences of life, grace of which we tend to be unaware.

Where has this rung true in your life?