What In the World!

One of my favorite things to do when flying on a plane is watching the earth below me. I like looking out the window, past the clouds, straight to the ground. I had to fly from Anchorage to Fairbanks, Alaska once on a 19-passenger, twin engine aircraft. From this experience, I learned that small planes like that can only go certain height compared to its bigger contemporaries. So, there I was sitting on the plane, about maybe 20, 000 feet off the ground. From that distance, I can actually see houses, ponds, and vehicles, all moving as if in slow motion. 

On bigger planes though, the view is a little bit different. I can't really see houses and buildings, instead I see town grids. I didn't know that towns are laid out so straight! Look at this picture that I took from a plane on a trip to Utah and find the town grid: 

Well, there's a not much in this picture to show the town grid except for that little area at the bottom. Maybe I was actually taking a picture of the landscape? Anyway, I know you'd agree with me. Those are serious mountains y'all!

Night-time flights are the best. At night, there's really nothing to see out the window except for darkness and those red blinking lights at the edge of the wings of the plane. At several thousand feet off the ground, with nothing but darkness outside, I would marvel at how little my world had become. During those moments, my life had become suddenly contained in a world of maybe 200 people, a few bathrooms, aisles, carton juices, and boxed meals.

But then out of the darkness, tiny blinking lights would appear in my horizon. Suddenly I don't feel very much isolated. There IS a bigger world out there! Look at this amazing picture of USA and the Bahamas taken by NASA:

Breathtaking, isn't it?

And doesn't this picture make you feel very insignificant? I do. Somewhere north of this picture is our house. You can't see it, this picture makes it too tiny. That bright strip of land at the middle is Florida. Somewhere in there, my sister would have been making dinner for her family. But she's just a little dot in this massive land, you would never see her. There are people in this picture on a cruise, at work, in a church, on the road, in school...but we'd never see them...they're all mere dust on this earth.

This picture is not even half of the United States. Far from it. Imagine with me, zoom out a little bit more and you'd see maybe the whole of the Americas. If you zoom out some more, you'd have a view of the whole earth-- tiny, blinking lights barely visible. Do you feel it now? How tiny and insignificant we all are in this immense planet! And Earth is only one of the gazillion heavenly bodies out there.

All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:3

Now imagine the view of the universe from heaven. From where Jesus is seated high. I can't help but ask, why does Jesus love me? Why me? What's so special about me that out of the unfathomable things that God has created, why would He concern himself about me? A dust. 

And the only answer that I can think of is that God, in his splendor, majesty, and glory, is full of love, grace and mercy. 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

All of a sudden, I don't feel insignificant anymore. That's what love can do! For absolutely NO REASON, God loves me. With billions of people on earth and gazillion of creation, he chose me. He concerns himself with my business. He wants to know my going in and going out...not to be nosy, but to send his protection and blessing. Above all else, God sees past my failures and meet me at the point of my need. Every. Single. Time. 

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. John 1:16

And so...what is there to fear? Jesus' life brings light to my darkness. This light that Jesus has given me shines in the darkness and NOTHING can ever extinguish it! Praise the Lord!


Today's worship song: Mercy Came Running by PC&D