They say, a picture is worth a thousand words and sometimes that it true, but over the last 10 days, I must have taken enough pictures to fill a book with my words and my stories. I just returned from the trip of a lifetime as my family and I sailed to parts of Alaska and British Colombia on a cruise. My parents are celebrating 50 years of marriage this March and so they have been planning this Alaskan adventure for all of us for several years and paid for our whole family to experience this with them. My sisters and their families went to and together we spent seven nights, eight days seeing the beauty of God’s world.
In Vancouver, we walked and played through Stanley Park and watched families of crabs scuttling around by the seashore. In Sitka, we took a whale watching tour and got to witness a mama Humpback teaching her calf how to hunt and stun the fish with her giant fluke. In Juneau, we rafted down the cold and murky waters of the Mendel Hall Glacier. Then in Prince Rupert we saw deer and sea otters and the most majestic foliage along the island coast. We were truly in awe of the beauty of God’s Creation once again. And it is on trips like these that I always come back feeling smaller as I stand in more amazement of what we have been given by God to call our home. Our children experienced it too and on the flight into Vancouver, Charlie, our seven-year old was taking pictures on his IPad out the plane window as the sun came down and he said to my husband, “Daddy, now I know why it is so important to you that we travel and see new things!” Buddy, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I wanted you, my church family to know what a gift it was to get away. To rest and play and slow down, but mostly to see beautiful places with my family. It reminds me once again just how big God is and just how small I am. We worship a God that despite the grandness of God’s character, still cares about you and me. The same God that created the mountains and glaciers and seashore, loves and cares for us. This is amazing to me, because it once again puts things into perspective. I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but you won’t mess us God’s grand plan, you haven’t now, nor ever will be defined by what you haven’t done or have failed to do. You will not be limited by anything your hands can create or your brain can imagine, because in the end, our God is a God of majesty and beauty and that will be enough. Traveling always reminds me how small I am, how in need of God I am and how diverse this beautiful world can be. At Annual Conference this year, our guest speaker said that if you don’t like Diversity, you won’t like heaven and when I was traveling this past week, I saw so much of heaven on earth. For whatever reason, seeing how small I am, in relation to both Creation and Humanity is such a balm for my soul and a healing for my pride. Scripture says that we must decrease so that God can increase but that doesn’t mean that we shrink our belovedness, we only adjust our perspective. When we get outside ourselves, take ourselves less seriously, take the beauty of God’s world and God’s people seriously, we decrease so that God can increase.
The beginning of Psalm 8 sums it up like this:
1 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
My prayer for us this season is to remember how small we are and how big God really is. If we slow down enough, if we turn off the noise, if we go for a walk near the lake or the beach, we will see that the majestic name of the Lord is in everything and that same God wants to know us, love us, transform us and transform the world too. The question is, are we focused on the right things? Are we the center of our own stories or is God? When we consider the works of God, may we stand in awe of the small part we get to play in God’s grand story of love.
AMEN
Today I wanted our devotion to focus on celebration! Mostly today, I wanted to celebrate Pastor Philip, my colleague in ministry and friend. It has been on my heart recently to do a better job at celebrating the work of this church and the ministry that we participate in and so today I want to tell you a little more about the work of Pastor Philip and the new chapter he is entering.
