Seeing the Sacred: God's Presence in Every SeasonSample

Day 5: Seeing the Sacred

Seeing the sacred in the ordinary is an invitation to encounter God in every aspect of our lives. It’s a reminder that we don’t have to invite Him where He already is. It’s about recognizing that God’s presence isn’t confined to places of worship or extraordinary miracles but is in our everyday experiences. Jacob’s encounter at Bethel, where he exclaimed, “The Lord is here and I was not aware,” reveals to us that the sacred can surprise us in the most mundane of places. It’s in the conversations over shared meals, the laughter of loved ones, the kindness of strangers, and the rhythms of nature that we often unexpectedly find God revealing Himself.

In Joshua 4, setting up stones as a memorial was an act of seeing the sacred. The stones served as tangible reminders of God’s faithfulness and power, a physical representation of a spiritual reality. They were ordinary stones, yet they became sacred symbols that testified to a divine encounter. In our lives, stones are simple practices that help us remember and appreciate God’s presence and action along our journeys.

To see the sacred means to cultivate an awareness of God in the details of life. It’s pausing to notice the beauty in creation, the worth of having someone’s support, or the peace that comes after a storm. It’s about living with the expectation that God can and does show up in both the routine and the remarkable. The highs and the lows. The giving and the taking away. The clarity and the confusion. The calm and the chaos.

This practice of cultivating awareness coincides with the message of Ecclesiastes 3, which tells us that “to everything, there is a season and a time.” The sacred is not limited to certain seasons of rejoicing or triumph; it is equally present in times of grief and loss. By acknowledging that there is a divine purpose and timing to every season, we open our eyes to see the sacred in all of life’s ebb and flow. When we live with this perspective, we transform our understanding of time itself beyond just as a series of moments to get through. We learn to trust that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, and in each of these times, God is present.

In more practical terms, seeing the sacred might involve starting each day with a few minutes of silence, looking for God’s hand in the day’s events, or ending the day with gratitude for where we’ve seen the sacred. It might mean building altars or stacking stones in our hearts that commemorate God’s faithfulness, just as Jacob and Joshua did.

Ultimately, seeing the sacred in the ordinary seasons and common days is about living with a heightened sense of wonder and expectation. It’s intentionally making room for God in our schedules, decisions, relationships, goals, and dreams. It’s believing that “the Lord is here” in every moment, waiting to be recognized, ready to reveal Himself.

Blessing:

In every season, may you see the sacred.

May you see God’s hand in the details you’d normally overlook.

And may you notice where you’ve been unaware.

May you see the God who walks beside you,

who whispers, “I am with you always.”

May you be reminded that there,

in the midst of it all,

God is.

May you set up your altars of remembrance.

May you pick up your stones.

May you stack them high.

May you see the sacred.

God.

In everything.

Was this plan helpful? We adapted this Plan from Kayleon Dortch-Elliott's book, To Everything: Seeing the Sacred in Ordinary Seasons and Common Days.