perspective.

It's rare that a thought enters my mind, like a divine or magical encounter, that I can legitimately point to as an epiphany or revelation from God. I suppose one could say the circumstance was anticlimactic & somewhat bittersweet, coming back home after a week of escaping familiarity and detoxing in paradise. But as the pilot announced that we were making our final descent back home to each one's sobering reality, I looked outside the window and couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed at the perspective thousands of feet above the ground. The buildings, houses, and lakes looked like tiny lego pieces I could easily displace and there was no sign of actual life apart from the cars that seemed to be moving in slow motion. It suddenly occurred to me how minuscule I am in this vast world. I felt so insignificant and also a bit embarrassed at how I believed my life was just about me, my actions and what I make of myself. It's difficult to shake off the sentiment that I'm in control of my destiny and life is only comprised of what I can visibly see, however beautiful or mundane it may be at any given moment. I closed my eyes and tried to take it all in, the stark truth that life is so much bigger than I could possibly grasp given my limited wisdom & experience. Then as I stood at the brink of becoming depressed and despondent, God reminded me of the times I could almost literally hear His voice, as if He knew exactly what I was feeling and knew precisely what I needed to hear and believing, if only for a second, that I had the God of the universe all to myself. I thought of just last week when He spoke to me so powerfully and gently without words but through a supernatural, healing peace and grace so real that I couldn't deny that I was His beloved. It's revelations such as these that convince me of God's hand in my life and there really is more than we could ever begin to comprehend. Whether it is due to this expanded view or simply my low tolerance for idleness & boredom, I just can't live the same way anymore. Neither do I want to. I want my actions to have purpose and for my time & energy spent on relationships to deepen and enrich those around me. Then I began to wonder about all the amazing opportunities we must miss out on daily because of fear: fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of taking risks. Maybe that's why we stop having fun as we get older. We let fear overrule our desire for greatness and fizzle out any inertia we could've mustered up to take more risks. The real tragedy is when we look back on our lives, maybe even in just the past few years, we won't have any memorable stories to share. We won't be able to relive the time when we overcame a giant obstacle, stepped up when someone else needed us, or did more than was required or expected. Idleness, if we allow it, will rob us of the best years of our lives. That is, of course, if we're content living with a life sans passion, meaning & love. I'll take the good with the bad, the losses with the victories, if only for the sake of not being lukewarm. But more so for the hope of one day seeing Jesus face to face & hearing "well done."