Cosmic God

“Meet Me in the morning stillness, while the earth is fresh with the dew of My Presence. Worship Me in the beauty of holiness. Sing love songs to My holy Name. As you give yourself to Me, My Spirit swells within you till you are flooded with divine Presence.” (Jesus Calling)

Sometimes God feels close. He feels personal. He feels like us.

Songs and sermons tell me He is my Dad. He is my best friend. He is sitting in the chair next to me and He cares that I stubbed my toe and it hurts more than I would like to admit. He will wipe away every tear that falls, right?

My Dad. My friend. My tears. When did God become all about me?

Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,

     ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;

     worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

The voice of the LORD is over the waters;

     the God of glory thunders,

     the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.

The voice of the LORD is powerful;

     the voice of the LORD is majestic.

The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;

     the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,

     Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the LORD strikes

     with flashes of lightning.

The voice of the LORD shakes the desert;

     the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.

The voice of the LORD twists the oaks

     and strips the forests bare.

And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;

     the LORD is enthroned as King forever.

The LORD gives strength to his people;

     the LORD blesses his people with peace.  (Psalm 29)

If we heard about some unknown creature in the forest who could speak lightning and twist the largest trees until the forest was bare, we would be terrified. Think of what he could do to us!

Then why do we not fear the LORD when we know He can do those things and more? He is a loving God, but He also made King Herod die and sent worms to eat his body. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. He drowned the Egyptian army. He uses his power, yet we so often assume He will never use it on us. Jesus came as a sacrificial lamb, but He is also the lion of the tribe of Judah. We don’t see many paintings depicting Him as a lion. We see what we want to see—God coming down to be with us, to wrap us in His arms, to be close to us because He created us and loves us and we are his treasure.

How often do we think about God as God, and not as God-and-us?

I have recently started watching the TV series Cosmos that aired about a year ago, and all the talk about space blows my mind. We have no idea how small we are. Nothing gives me quite the same feeling as watching a fictional camera start somewhere on earth and zoom out to reveal the whole planet. It makes Uganda seem pretty small. Then the camera zooms out again to show not only our planet, but also all the ones around us—our solar system. Earth is one of many, and it’s not even that big. Then we take another step back and watch our solar system fade from view in the grand scheme of the Milky Way Galaxy. We can’t pick out our sun, let alone little ol’ earth.

Did you know earth is 30,000 light years away from the center of the Milky Way? I cannot comprehend anything ever taking 30,000 years to get somewhere. Not when a fictional camera can zoom out in seconds. But we’re not finished.

From there, we take another step back and discover other galaxies surrounding ours. Suddenly the Milky Way looks negligible. What is so important about one galaxy among thousands in the Virgo Supercluster? And then we zoom out again to view more galaxies, more clusters of galaxies, and a whole network called the observable universe. Which, for all we know, could be contained inside a bubble that bumps around with an infinite number of other bubbles, each with their own universes and galaxies and planets with people who think they are the center of it all. Would it make any difference at all if one of those bubbles suddenly popped?

We, human beings on earth, are profoundly insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. We tend to think of ourselves as something special, but from my understanding our entire planet could disappear and it would affect virtually nothing. It would be like if I pulled out one of your leg hairs and expected you to never be able to walk again. It is only in the past few hundred years that we have been able to break free from our egocentricity and open our minds to much greater realities.

Just like how in recent centuries people have learned to view the universe outside of earth’s place in it, so we need to learn to view God outside of His relationship with us. If our only knowledge of God was meant to come through personal encounters with Him, we would never need the Bible because we would never need to know more. But God is bigger than my quiet time with Him. He is bigger than a thunderstorm with Him and He is bigger than the words He speaks to me. If I limit God’s character to His interactions with me, I am no better than the people who thought the earth was the center of the universe.

Psalm 29 struck me because there is no first person perspective. It is written objectively, not saying, “This is who I think God is” or “This is who God is to me” (a classic one in today’s culture), but “This is who God is.” Period. Because God is greater than our thoughts and He is greater than His interactions with any one of us.

Where have I even stood but the shore upon your ocean?

That is one of my favorite song lyrics. It reminds us that we see only a finite part of who God is. No matter how hard we strain our eyes, we see only a portion. We are not yet capable of more, but that doesn’t mean God cannot be more.

So think about God objectively. Think about God outside His relationship with you. Think about God like David did. Remember that God is the center; He is not just your helper. Take a moment to stop imagining Him in the chair next to you and start imagining Him on His throne. Stop talking in first person.

Don’t make it about yourself. Make it about God.

(Photo from: http://www.karlremarks.com/2013/04/study-confirms-that-lebanon-is-indeed.html)

I Know My Stockings Are Dirty

Here in Uganda, a lot of things are done differently than what I was accustomed to in America. We drink tea even when it is hot out. We say “I’m going to win you” in a game instead of “I’m going to beat you.” We don’t show our thighs because that is downright scandalous. And we wash our clothes by hand.

Honestly, I don’t mind the hand washing so much. It takes a little while, but there is a sense of satisfaction in scrubbing the red dirt out of a pair of trousers that you don’t get if you let a machine do all the work. I have callouses on my hands from ringing out my wet clothes. I have learned that a scrub brush gets dirt out better than using my fingers as a washboard (and it is much less painful). The downside is that things don’t shrink back to size so well when you ring them out by hand and dry them in the sun—last week I had to literally hold up my running shorts while jogging, but maybe if I eat enough that will no longer be a problem.

My favorite time to do washing is sock day. You see, I have twelve pairs of neon colored socks that look fabulous on the line in front of my house, so of course I have to wait and wash them all at the same time. A neighbor once told me we should hang my socks in the children’s home for the next birthday instead of colored banners. When no one is around, I sometimes stand on my verandah or in front of my house, admiring the colors and festivity of the occasion. But only when no one is around to see me staring at my socks.

 The children don’t find them as beautiful as I do. The first time I put them on display, many people were quick to point out that most of my stockings were still dirt-stained. The thing is, my feet are always dirty. In sandals or running shoes, my feet turn dark tan by the end of each day, and every night I wash off my tan before going to bed. The red dirt roads are dusty in the dry season and muddy when it rains, and my socks seem to be magnets for this soil.

Despite the dirt, I don’t spend much time or effort washing my socks. My logic is that I only wear them when I go for jogging, so why would they ever need to be clean? Aside from when we hang them for a birthday, that is. They are only going to get dirty within thirty seconds of putting them on, so as long as they don’t smell they are clean enough for me.

It soon became common knowledge that Auntie Katie doesn’t know how to wash stockings. I have to admit, it’s not a reputation I ever expected.

During my last sock washing day, I decided to avoid the comments of  “Auntie Katie, why did you hang up dirty stockings?” and “Auntie Katie, let me teach you how to scrub your stockings.” When I hung up my festive footwear, I also hung two signs on the line. The first read:

(Auntie Katie knows her stockings are dirty. It doesn’t bother her.)

And the second:

(If it bothers you, feel free to wash them yourself.)

Beneath my clothesline, I left a basin of water and a bar of soap. The first few people to pass my house stopped to read the signs, chuckled, and moved on. At most, I hoped to give everyone a good laugh when they stopped by that afternoon. Then I left for an hour.

When I returned that evening, I walked onto a verandah with six girls… who were washing my socks. All my socks. They were re-hanging the last pair just as I arrived, and every single stocking on that line was spotless. Their aunties taught them well, I must say.

I was told later that during band practice (which happens every evening in front of my house), one of the girls kept glancing up at my line, reading the signs and scrutinizing the stockings. Finally, she shook her head, said, “It bothers me!” and proceeded to scrub my socks one by one. As with most things here, several people soon joined in and within minutes even the light colored socks had not a hint of red dust. It was incredible!

They wanted to show me how they did it, but I tried in vain to explain that it’s not that I don’t know how to wash socks; it’s that I don’t care enough to scrub them myself.

While comical, the whole thing left me with a bit of a dilemma. If I hang up socks washed to my standard next time, it’s like I am asking the children to come make them sparkle again, and that is completely unnecessary. However, I still don’t care enough to scrub them myself. Maybe I’ll have to hang them inside… or maybe I should stop washing altogether and start hanging dirty laundry on the line instead.

Oh, the woes of missionary life.