what i live for

how is it that we so easily forget?

when i worked at summer camp, we used to do star walks with our kids. out in the country, the night would be dark, cool. you could hear the crickets chirping, the mosquitoes buzzing. and when you looked up into the sky, you saw hundreds of stars.

Picture courtesy of NASA and H. Richer (University of British Columbia)

we started with facts about the earth: how many miles around it is, how many people live here. then we would talk about the sun: how far away from the sun we were, how fast light travels, how many miles away all the other stars were, how many earths could fit into the sun. and then we would talk about the other stars: how our sun is only an ordinary, medium-sized star, how all the stars we see are just portions of galaxies, how we live in one galaxy, with billions of stars, and there are many, many more.

Picture courtesy of: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)

and then we would talk about God: how God is bigger than the universe, how he holds it in his hand. how infinite, how vast, how awesome, how indescribable.

and then we would read Psalm 8 - what is man that you were mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? why does an infinite God care for such tiny creatures?

and the star walk would inspire awe and worship, because God is vast. God is wholly other. God is beyond imagination. and yet, he didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death - even death on a cross.

and yet, somehow with the passage of time, it's easy to forget that God is more vast than the universe. at some point, i begin to think of God in terms of humanity - in terms of my perspective, my pain, my focal point. i forget his vastness, and i start to contain him in my head, and in my heart. when i converse with him, sometimes i talk to him like he's just a friend, who i can walk right up to. and i know that he has given me permission to do so. but sometimes in that familiarity, i forget that God is holy - that he is wholly other.

and then i begin to live like he is human, understandable, containable. the pain that i'm in, or the situations that i am asked to bear become large and burdensome. my problems and my perspective start to control how i view life. and i forget how to worship God. i forget to worship, because the God that i now perceive is not God as he is. somehow, in my own mind, i've transformed God into a being that i can control. somehow, i've begun to define God in terms of who i am, instead of defining myself in terms of who God is.

i'm not so different from the Israelites, who heard God's voice on the mountain. God has spoken to me - i have glimpsed his glory and his holiness, and i have been in awe. yet, like the Israelites, that glimpse is too much for me. and so i create my own golden calf. my mold is not of gold, but it is there. and just as real as the golden calf, my image of God creates a barrier - i cannot worship the true God when i have created my own image of him.

and so i cry out to God to crush my self-made images of him, and to meet me as he is. i ask like Moses that God would allow me to see his glory, so that i may worship him. and i remember.

i remember what i live for.