On Night Skies and Yielding Our Ways

I've never found myself so taken by the night skies as I have been this summer.  The openness and dazzling lights have ministered to my soul in ways I'm not sure I possess the words to explain.

I cannot help but look up.

There are patterns of living in which we can fall into.  Things which may not be inherently evil, but have tamed our souls in ways which we must not allow.

This past Sunday, I was privileged to attend a Sunday morning service at a church local to the area I am currently serving in.  The pastor's sermon was regarding how we as Christians may look back to the past and long for "the old days" when we felt more comfortable, secure or in control - instead of holding fast to the God of the past, present and future.

"God isn't the one playing hard to get here," he said.

Have we allowed ourselves to slip into patterns of thinking which inhibit our abilities to trust our everyday to the One who holds every single particle of the universe together without disaster?  Perhaps we have struggled and strived to cling to what is already gone.

“If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.  And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26-27)

Are we holding on to our ideas of stability and purpose too tightly to let them slip through our fingers into the hands of a God who does not love passively?

What must we hand over to the Father today without any constraint?  No reservations whatsoever?

Our willingness to have our dreams and plans sacrificed, be broken open and poured out for the sake of His plans leads us to a wild, open space of faith.

How can we rest in a wild, free world of learning to depend fully on Him instead of our ideas of Him?  What would happen if we specifically chose each day to not place limits on Him, or what He wants to do with us?

I can choose to trust God with every fiber of my being - because He is the one holding together every particle of the universe.  And if He can hold the whole world, He can hold me too.  No matter how tired, unworthy, or tumultuous I feel.  

There is no resentment in the heart of Jesus towards those in need.  Those who open themselves up to being filled find a greater satisfaction than they might have envisioned - though they may find it comes as the things they need, instead of the things they want.  If His love and purpose can fill the sky, surely it can fill our hearts as well.

So here I am, writing to you with a sea of stars outside my window - and a God who carries me present in this very moment.  I cannot pretend to know what will become of me in the coming years, just like I cannot fathom the magnitude of the stars in the heavens.  The process of becoming might just be even more beautifully breaking than I thought.

However, as Andrew Peterson has put it "The enemy's best efforts to blacken the world would only serve to scatter the light like stars in the heavens."

Peace envelops the soul as we gaze upward.

Perhaps standing wide-eyed in wonder and submission is the best place to be.