How You Look At Things

Take a snapshot of the observable known universe, and our galaxy appears to be only a tiny white speck. Even within our own galaxy, our star is but a speck within a speck--dust, unidentifiable to the naked eye. Now, zoom onto you or me. Each of us is made up between 10 to 100 Trillion cells, and each cell exists as a world in itself. With this perspective, I see how everything God makes is, in fact, beautiful (and perceived as dull only when my processor fails to register the truth). C. S. Lewis put it this way in The Weight of Glory:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

How far we've fallen to come to this: to thinking that anything God has made, particularly the people he's shaped and formed, could be counted as dismissible, uninteresting, unworthy, or something worse. On the flipside, how far each of us has fallen that we probably, at most times, deserve to be viewed as something worse for the things we do or don't do, or for what we allow to go on around us, or for simply not acknowledging the Things we should. From this, no one is excluded; we all fall short.

The point of all this? How beautiful Creation is. How far it has fallen. How far God has descended to redeem us all. How great is His love. He is worthy of all praise.

Each day, I wake up. With air in my lungs. Through each night as I sleep (demonstrating all the more that it is through no power of my own), my heart beats. I have control over my fingers, hands, and feet to run, jump, and dance and experience Creation as I please (indeed I am grateful). I have eyes that perceive better than any camera all the beauty that is around me. And despite all the brokenness in this world, God is all the more worthy to be praised because through hope--through Christ--brokenness isn't where it all ends. Beyond life, He gives Life. Before I had it, I didn't know what Life was, let alone know that I was missing it (dead men don't know they're dead).

Very real to me is the distinct peace I've been given, in deep contrast to the darkness that was once my mind. Very real to me is freedom from the shame I no longer bear, as well as liberation from addiction. And now, even in affliction, I see His goodness in refining me for His glory.

Beyond church walls, comfort zones, and social barriers, God is worthy of all worship. In case you don't see this truth in your own life, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. (Similarly, just because one doesn't understand an answer to a question doesn't mean that the answer is wrong.) As a starting point, simply change how you look at things.

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