Hope
/When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,5 What are we that you should be mindful of us?
mere mortals that you should seek us out?-Psalm 8:4-5
God is awesome. I mean - awesome in its original sense, not in the same way we call some cool sneakers ‘awesome.’ I mean awesome in the sheer magnitude and scope of reality, well beyond any possible understanding or explanation way. I mean awesome in the way your breath is taken away at a view of Bryce Canyon or in the way your heart beats out of your chest when that tractor trailer rights itself moments before it would surely have killed you. I mean awesome in the way that God holds the key to life and death itself and created the moon and stars and far more beyond our ‘known’ universe. I mean, truly, breath-takingly, heart-pumpingly, stunningly awesome.
And we….well. We are not so awesome. We are small, finite and limited. We may think we’re top dog, but we’re really just a blade of grass in the scope of things - here today, gone tomorrow. And not only that, every day we’re reminded that human beings just keep making the same mistakes over and over in ways both small and big. We are pretty dense about even ourselves and closest loved ones, let alone able to grasp in the slightest the awesomeness of the entire time/space continuum that is all the creation of God.
Someone said to me the other day that considering our continual mess-ups like wars, slavery, genocide, pollution, overpopulation and climate change, it’s pretty amazing that human beings still exist at all. So you’ve got to ask - what are human beings, God, that you are mindful of us? Why do you still seek us out and invite us into relationship, and give us repeated chances to turn back toward love? How come you continue to give us second (and third and billionth) chances?
If there is anything that gives me hope in the midst of our world as it is, it is the ever present invitation to us to enter into God’s awesome love. If everything else fell down around our ears, we’d still have that. No matter what falls away, we can still practice being ambassadors of God’s love in our families, workplaces, neighborhoods. We can still be the aroma of Christ even in places where things stink pretty bad. We can still be light in places that are dark, forgiving in places that want to punish, caring in times of prejudice and hate. We can be givers even in times of scarcity, good listeners in times of confusion and hurt, consolers in times of pain and loss, and bearers of peace in times of worry and anxiety. We won’t be all that good at it, most likely, but nonetheless, God’s love for us is awesome beyond measure, and we can always return to that love and then bring some of that love out to share with others.
God is always mindful of us. It gives me hope that I can always practice being mindful back.
