High Above

 

 

No matter how far you travel you can never escape God. 

The above thought is one of great comfort to me.  As I have grown older I have begun to reflect on my life, mostly on how I am still alive.  All kidding aside, far too often I forget I can do nothing without God.

Have you ever wondered about what remains constant regardless of where you are or where you go in life? To me it’s obvious, it’s the sky.  It is so big, so blue, so vast, so endless, and so high above.   Despite whatever country, city or suburbs you may find yourself, all you need do is look up.  Far too often we are looking too hard when all that is required of us is to “Be still and know that I am God.” 

It was 1983, but I can still vividly remember seeing the biggest sky I can ever recall while driving out West during a church youth group trip.  On one particular day we drove for hours through New Mexico and it was visually unbelievable.  The sky so blue, the clouds so big they seemed to cast shadows, almost as if they were chasing one another.  It left me in awe of God and His creation and me feeling so small.

This reminds me of another time when God felt like He was right next to me.  My family and I were in Guangzhou, China in 2012 to finalize the adoption of our youngest daughter.  What I most remember of that second week in China was I would regularly be out and about walking  the streets alone to get dinner for the family. I was struck by the crowd noise and the hustle and bustle of life, but nothing was familiar because I couldn’t speak the language. Most of the sites were foreign with a few with American names, like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, etc.  However, even though they were wearing familiar uniforms, when they spoke in their native Chinese tongue I was easily confounded, oddly reminding me that I was the one out of place.  

   

Then I looked up and saw the big blue sky.  That was the only thing in this strange world that was the same as it was back in Pennsylvania.  My family and I had traveled over 3000 miles and the sky was still blue, even though the stores and the cobble stone streets and settings were so foreign to me.  It was so striking to me that the same God I served in Pennsylvania was present in China.  The sky was comforting to me, like a long lost friend that instantly put me at ease; it was something that bathed me in familiarity. Not to mention then when we by faith took God’s hand; the sky was the limit, high above us.

Unfortunately, we as humans tend to try to limit God’s influence in our lives.  How dare He control our lives or ask to step outside our comfort zone to follow His bidding.  However, forgetting the whole while, that God is limitless.  If the sky is the limit with God, then why do we hesitate to trust Him with our life? 

God may be high above us, but despite the distance He is always near me.

Swavel