Sacred Places

This Saturday morning I am starting my day sitting in a rocking chair at ridgecrest conference center. The morning is cool and I have a great cup of coffee. This is my sacred place.

For those who don't know Ridgecrest, it is a Baptist owned conference center in the mountains of North Carolina. We would come here every year for youth camp when I was a teenager and then came in college every year on this weekend for our annual Baptist Student Union Fall Convention. That is what brings me here this weekend...of course now I am a campus minister and not a student.

There is this long porch that has about thirty rocking chairs that overlook the mountains. As a youth this was one of the cool places to hang out and a lot of memories were made in these rocking chairs.

But this place, ridgecrest, is also where I have made all of my major decisions in life. This is where I hear God speak. I did not set out to make all of these decisions and life commitments here, it just happened that way. And now when I arrive through the gates, I immediately feel God's presence. I just feel at peace.

We all have those sacred places...yours might now seem so sacred to anyone else but you know it is the place where you can feel the most honest and at peace. It is a place where all becomes clear and God breaks in in ways you would not expect. It is a place where you remember what has been and you see the direction for the future.

As we start this new season of fall, why not find some time to spend in your sacred place, or maybe make a new one? You never know what can happen there.