Last week I had the priveledge of spending time in Paris, France. It was my first time out of the country. I went with a band and we got to play music for a hundred or so people. I was under the impression that we might play for a bigger crowd...I wasn't dissapointed, but I kind of felt unimportant.
We walked around a lot. We saw some buildings that we hundreds of years old. I stood next to them. Touched them. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but I was wrong. It made me feel really small in comparison to history.
In Paris there are 12 million people. I was only one 12 millionth of the population. That seems kind of insignificant doesn't it?
So what does it all mean? Was I depressed the whole time I was there? No way. It's Paris, France for crying out loud. It was awesome! It's great to be reminded of the reality that the world didn't begin when I was born, people's destiny is NOT hanging on me or my gifts, and there are so many types of people out there are that are so different than me. Those are all great things. It's good to remember that we are insignificant sometimes because it can get our head out of the clouds and planted firmly on God's green earth. And it reminds us of who really is big. And if that Big Thing is for us than it doesn't matter how small we are.
I feel bad for the people that think they're big. Life can only be a struggle against reality...that's not a battle I want to take on.
1 comment:
Good thoughts.
I was just, well I have been for a while, pondering "big-ness" last night. We, at post-college group, were discussing the problem of evil - how and why it came about. I was floored to tears during the conversation that I should try, as Paul says in Romans 9:14-29, to question God as if he were a man. All my thoughts and judgments/evaluations of God are from the perspective of a human towards another human. I was hit that I recognize and evaluate God more as a human than as, well, God. I don't really know how to evaluate (or cease to) God as not a human, but I couldn't believe how large my picture of God would be if I could learn to see him as immeasurably beyond human.
Later that eveniing, as I was driving, I looked miles down the street to where the foothills rise up to meet the edge of Boise. It was a beautiful and awe-inspiring sight. I then wondered why I was so awe-struck. My first thought was that I am, and all of humanity, impressed by "big-ness," but why should I be impressed by bigness? My "logical" conclusion was that I only revered bigness because God is the fulfillment of bigness and the one who planted that desire in me. Just as I would have no preference to call one object beautiful while calling another ugly, so I would have no reason to revere mountains over speed bumps unless God made me that way.
I became very thankful on that drive that God would choose to allow me to recognize what he made as awesome and beautiful. Still, I can't shake the feeling and desire to see the creator (and giver of our respect for greatness and beauty) as he must be even greater and more beautiful yet. How privileged we are to be made with the capacity to genuinely revere, love, and respond in awe to God the creator.
(after writing this, I felt it was lengthy enough to just post on my own blogsite...am I now plaigerizing myself or your rights to my comment? If so, forgive me...)
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