SMALL HANDS

The fact that we live in a large and complicated world can be a source of either frustration or awe. Today, I have felt a little bit of both. For my independent study, I read 500+ pages of reports this afternoon about cities, smart growth, transportation, and land development, and the only thing I learned is just how much I didn’t know before I started reading. In the past 24 hours, I have heard from friends who are doing work in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and I am overwhelmed by the complexity of their tasks, be it language acquisition or cultural assimilation or spiritual breakthrough. Yesterday, I finally got a chance to catch up on last week’s Economist, and I read about the British election and the EU constitution and the Syrian pullout in Lebanon, and lamented that I was not more up to date on these important current events.

I long to know things and to accomplish things. And to spend an entire weekend having revealed to me so many things I do not yet know and cannot yet accomplish has been frustrating. But it can also be an opportunity for awe. For I am but one person, but my God is aware of and in control of all of these things and much, much more. And that to me is one of the most awe-inspiring facets of God.

It reminds me of my summer in Albania. I was a hotshot twenty-one-year-old who attended an Ivy League school and was a respected leader in my Christian fellowship. I spent the summer between my junior and senior years in Eastern Europe, and God spent the summer reminding me that He’s the real hotshot. Albania was the fourth of four countries I was to spend time in, and by then this summer-long lesson was beginning to sink in. My proud heart, which tended to frustration when things got overwhelming, was giving way to a humbler heart, which tended to awe when things got overwhelming.

I remember in particular a long hike through the mountains one day. We were going out to the remote villages to transport medical supplies, check up on destitute families, and spread the message of Jesus Christ. The hike up into the mountains was exhilarating but draining, and my traveling companions and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we were able to hitch a ride back home from a truck heading into the capital city.

As we got further and further away from the mountains, I looked back and marveled at their size. I remembered how arduous it was to conquer them on foot, and though they weren’t really that big (maybe 4,000 feet in elevation), I was a little intimidated by their grandness even from a distance. I remember feeling like God was nudging me to look back at the mountains and marvel at them, and then that He was nudging me to look down at my hands. I did so. They looked so small and insignificant. It was like He was showing me how much greater He is than me, His great mountains versus my small hands. I could be frustrated by my smallness or awed by His greatness. And in that moment, bumping along in the back of a pickup truck, I was in awe.

Today, I feel like it is my brain that is small. And this can be a source of frustration or an opportunity to be in awe. For the sake of my sanity and my soul, I pray my heart is humble enough to choose to be in awe.