I just spent 9 days driving 3,500 miles across North America with 19 other students to Juneau, Alaska… Awesome? Yep! This was 9 days of experiencing up-close and personal some of the most beautiful and awe inspiring sights that I’ve seen in my life. 9 days of relying on God’s protection and provision for every leg of our trip. Many times, I found myself at a loss of words basking in the majesty of the landscapes that we covered. In these times, it was as if I was face-to-face with God looking upon endless chains of Canadian mountains, looking out over the rolling hills of the great plains, or looking out over beginnings of the vast Pacific Ocean. The sights we saw undoubtedly radiated with the glory of the Creator who crafted it into existence so many years ago.
Pictures and stories will reserve some of the memories and experiences, but the one thing that I will take away from this road trip for years to come is the level to which I experienced God’s glory. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. We serve a big God. An everlasting God. An omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly holy God. When I came to the realization that what I experienced is just a fragment of his awesome creation, I began to understand his immense size. More beautiful than God’s creation is the fact that he created you and I in his own image giving us dominion over all his creation; we are his most prized creation, so much so that he gave his son for us. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Speechless, I find myself humbly brought to my knees knowing that I have been sought out and loved by this Creator.
I began reading James MacDonald’s Vertical Church this past week (with countless hours of reading time on the road). He begins by writing on the significance of experiencing God’s transcendence in our lives; that is, God’s existence above and apart from his creation. Realizing God’s transcendence is realizing just how big God is and just how small we are. On experiencing God’s transcendence, MacDonald writes “I experience transcendence when something infinite reminds me I am finite…. All of these experiences diminish any sense of personal sovereignty…. Transcendence cuts us all down to our proper proportion before an awesome God.” Only, realizing God’s position is just the beginning of our walk. We must realize our rightful position on our knees before the everlasting God of this creation that is above all things. Like nothing else, experiencing God’s magnificence through the medium of his creation brings me to a point of honest humility and submissiveness. When I look at these mountains, the only thing I can think is “I want to serve that God!” I pray that that is our anthem throughout every waking moment of our lives. When that becomes our anthem is when God begins to do indescribable things through us for his ministry. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
(Psalm 90:2, Psalm 8:3-4, Isaiah 6:8)
