View from the Sky

Have you recently had a moment when the reality of the mere size and vastness of God has blown you away?

I had a moment like that yesterday that I want to quickly share with you:

The last 3 days I have spent at Harvest U which is an intensive church planting conference which was held in Elgin, Illinois. The conference was wonderful! Very focused, practical and concise and I was proud of myself because this may be the first conference ever where I have been at every session and never skipped out of anything. At conferences I have the attention span about the size of an ant and am usually bouncing around or grabbing lunch with friends or meeting with people rather than sitting through sessions.

However, this time I felt like I needed to soak in as much as I possibly could. I learned tons about small group formation, service planning, staff relationships, and the importance of making Church about God and not about us!

As I boarded the plane last night with Mary, my mind was literally moving at about 90 mph thinking about what I have learned, excitement for the future, what I can do better, and what the Lord has in store for me.

I was in the middle of playing a game of boggle on my phone with Mary when I happened to glance out of the window of our plane.

The sun was setting and when I looked down at the ground all I could see was groupings of city lights separated by miles and miles of land. It's hard to explain what I felt in that moment but I was blown away at the size and presence of God. I thought to myself as I looked at the night sky "all God had to do was speak and this happened." It is truly unfathomable! Psalm 19 tells us that God holds the Universe in the palm of his hand and my spirit literally felt that in that moment.

As I sat in the plane and looked out not only was I gripped by the size of God, but also about the frailty and smallness of myself. The truth of the gospel that says that outside of the blood of Christ there is nothing in me that can please God was made new again for me. I so small! how can I even pretend to be of any worth outside of Jesus Christ.

Thinking back on this whole experience, the coolest thing about it was that I unintentionally responded in the exact same way that Isaiah did in Isaiah 6, where in a vision he is brought into the throne room of the Lord!

Isaiah's first response was "woe is me for I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." When standing before the Lord Isaiah's first response was repentance. This same exact thing happened to me! I immediately repented of sin as I looked out of the plane window. "forgive me for my laziness, forgive me for my pride, forgive me for making you small and me big, forgive me for when I make life about me and not you, forgive me for forgetting how great you are, forgive me for making ministry about technique and not about you!" As I was gripped by the greatness of God all I could do was repent of my sin and thank him for his love and graciousness towards me!

The second thing Isaiah does in Chapter 6 is offer himself for service. When the Lord asks "who will go for us?" Isaiah responds by proclaiming "here I am! Send me." It is in the moments when our eyes are opened who how great God is that we can fully understand that there is no greater purpose in life than to serve him. As I sat in the plane I was so energized and ready to do whatever God would have me do for him! This is the call of all disciples of Jesus to make more disciples and I was so pumped to begin and continue the work God has called me to!

So as I look back and think through that experience, it is so cool that even though we were separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles Isaiah and I shared a similar response to seeing the glory of God. I believe repentance and action are a Biblical response to God and it was so amazing to see those Biblical principles come alive in a very real way for me!

When is the last time you have been struck by the awesomeness of God? And what was your response?

I think being in the presence of God is the place to be, let us strive to work towards that end together in humility!


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