today I'm feeling small.
I was just sitting at my desk, minding my own business--
Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder.
outside my window, a bird dances nervously at my neighbor's bird-feeder. he can't sit still for fear that he'll lose his perch to his nemesis: mr. squirrel.
Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.”
my book shelf is dusty. I ought to get up & clean it, wipe away the little fingerprints from 3-foot-tall friends.
The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.
***
according to census.gov, there are currently 7,003,414,040 people in the world. but that's no longer accurate, because 4 people are born & 2 die every second, & it's taken me several just to type this.
seven billion is a lot. try to picture them all: a billion-odd scattered across China, eating dinner with chopsticks or wading through rice paddies or typing on laptops in the Beijing airport. a paltry 22 million are currently enjoying the middle of winter in Australia, while a mere 7 million are making clocks (and money) while sipping hot chocolate in Switzerland. spin the globe & scatter a few more billion across Brazil, Norway, Congo, Ireland, French Guyana, Poland, Jamaica. save a million or two for Chicago, & one single person to sit at a desk in a house near a bird-feeder.
I am small. smaller than China, smaller than a Swiss bank account, smaller than my refrigerator.
compare my size to the estimated number of stars in the universe: 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 30 sextillion, for those of you whose brains are small like mine.) and if you really want to blow your mind, go to good old Wikipedia & read the article titled "Observable Universe." read about gigiparsecs, Lyman alpha forests, Hydra superclusters, quasars. read about the Big Bang theory & marvel at the smallness of human wisdom. a few billion lightyears in, I guarantee you'll have forgotten about your own existence.
but not quite. because it's almost lunch time, & what is the universe compared to a grilled cheese sandwich?
we are one cell in a cosmic body. one thought in an Artist's infinite imagination.
so very small.
I wish I could wrap my mind around this. because as big as our universe seems, it's still small in the hands of the Creator. and someday our big sky will crack open & reveal Bigness unlike anything we could imagine. none of my own perceived importance will matter then: instead, the Creator will pull out His records & remind me of the small stuff. that snarky remark I tossed out thoughtlessly? check. that moment I was proud of my accomplishments? check. that one time I acted out of selfish motivation? check. wait... was that just once, or was it my whole life long? I guess I lost track of time. myself just seemed so important back then. standing here & staring at the six wings of a seraphim, I can't imagine why.
but then the record book closes. the small stuff is forgotten, forgiven by the sacrifice of Someone who stepped down to my level & bought my smallness.
Lord, teach me to be small.
or rather... teach me to know my own smallness.
love always,
rory
[Scripture verses from Revelation 14 & 15. number estimates from Google searches. don't hate. basically, just don't use this post as a source for your master's thesis paper. =]
