TimeLapseLove | MakingHeavenCloser
Okay. Did you watch part of this video? All of it? I want you to just soak it all in. The constellations, the furious clouds, the galaxies.
Nature, sped up, makes my throat get tight. I feel like such a small piece of life on this planet, a place so huge and powerful that is my home.
I feel completely insignificant and completely important all at the same time.
That's the thing. We are incredibly loved and cared for by an all-powerful God AND we are nothing but a pinprick on the
giant world story of redemption.
"Knowing how valuable you are, and acknowledging your tiny role in a larger story is a difficult balance to strike."I think sometimes we blame God when things don't go the way we hoped they would. An exaggerated example would be when we pray for rain, not considering the others in town praying for sun. But in our day-to-day lives?
Allison Vesterfelt in her book Packing Light
Last week, my six-year-old told me that he prayed his little camera would start working again and it did! Then it died again. What? God doesn't care?
He prayed some more, hoping for a positive result. And then we had a little chat in which I said something like "God loves you, baby, so much. But that doesn't mean you always get all the things you want. He's got the really big picture in mind."
And that's what we adults are still learning -- that the "smaller" things that happen to us {read: lost employment, losing loved ones, difficult relationships} are just that, small. When compared to eternity and endless galaxies and all that.
He knows we don't see that. Although God's plan isn't to keep us here on earth, happy and content without a higher power, He realizes our deep-set need for security and love. He made us that way, of course. So when bad things happen He aches with us, cries with us, holds us. He lifts our trembling faces to lock eyes and say "there is so much more than this".
He did not die to remove our sufferings.
We do not belong to this world, but are made for greater things.
The hardest things we experience in this life are full of meaning and purpose, if we can but see. For suffering changes us and brings us closer to God. We're reminded that getting comfortable here on this earth would be the greatest mistake, for our relationship with God is the only thing that lasts forever.
So let the awe of nature settle in deep. Feel loved by the God of the universe.
And then lean into that, knowing that our time here is short and He's gonna do everything, anything to get us home.
