for when you need to know the big picture doesn't matter as much as you think

Our oldest has been introduced to Google Earth and he's obsessed.  I am still not sure if this is a male only obsession or if I'm just a female who happens to not get into it, but either way the introduction came from his daddy who is just as obsessed with it and has been since college.  One day I was walking in our old town main street towing two little boys at the time when the Google car with all it's cameras atop the roof came past us.  One of the two times I have checked Google Earth on my own was sometime after that to see myself on the street.  The other time was in my olden days of being a second grade teacher before smartboards so we all huddled around a desktop to see a visual representation as we were learning the differences between continents, countries, counties, states, and cities.  Every other has been my husband yelling come here and then showing me a view of something somewhere that is obviously amazing enough to interrupt whatever I was doing.

I love this tool and I love his interest.  Watching my boy visually see and seek out places on this earth that are different from his is wonderful for this mama heart.  This quote by Mark Twain is a favorite, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."  Seeking out new places spurs the desire to see new places which opens your heart to learning much about all the people and places God created and placed purposely in this world.  But the best part is not zooming out to see the big picture, it's zooming in to look at the details.

We are often after the big picture of life.  We want to know what's going to happen or why is this happening.  Lord, we pray, just give me a glimpse of the big picture and I promise I'll be able to follow more faithfully.  Truth bomb, it's not really the big picture that we're after, it's the right picture.  We want to see what we want to see.  We want to zoom out in hopes of a glimpse of the finish line, how things will end, we're not really concerned about what it's going to look like on the way.  Confession, if I had been given the gift I so longed for, to see the big picture of my life, I can already tell you I would have planted two feet in the ground as hard as possible and refused to move on.

Seeing the big picture does not matter as much as you think it does, what matters most is the infinite number of little spots that build that picture.  The purposefully, perfectly placed small stories in the middle.  Those are what truly show God's faithfulness. 

In numerous places in the old testament it talks about the Babylonian Captivity, for anyone not familiar to that story this is the jist...Israel was continually ignoring God and was going to be punished by being exiled to Babylon, held captive, taken over by another country and no longer allowed to lead themselves for 70 years.  This got their attention and many wanted to run and hide, but God told them through the prophet Jeremiah that if they would surrender to Babylon they would live, but if they ran and hid they would die.

I say this to explain that the big picture sucked, the big picture was being exiled, away from the country and place you loved, and being ruled by another, but if you get past the big picture and zoom in more and more you can find one person, a man named Daniel.  Daniel is one such perfectly placed spot in the middle of the story.  You see Daniel loved the Lord and God placed him right alongside of the king and used this one person to impact the heart of several rulers who then were able to impact the lives and hearts of their kingdoms with God's Kingdom.

Zooming down through the messy picture of powertrips and war and captivity is a single spot of love and grace working and growing.  Daniel is not the only spot.  Ruth was one in the middle of the time of Judges. One story of one woman, who became great grandmother to King David in the lineage of Christ.  Paul was one in the middle of torturous persecution.  Jesus, the brightest spot, came in the midst of terrible Roman rule to an obscure place in the middle of a tiny insignificant town.  We are each one.  Each of us in the middle of what feels like a mess are a single spot, perfectly placed tangible examples of God's faithfulness to His people and His promises.

Life is ever changing, human leadership is ever changing, we are ever changing while constantly learning, growing, and being made new.  Some days we feel as if we are being held captive in our own Babylon, some days we feel as if we are basking in the sun of the promised land.  Some days two people looking at the same event are feeling both extremes simultaneously.  If given the chance to see the big picture we most assuredly would not look through it with the same eyes God is able to, so instead of worrying about the big picture, focus on the single spot you make in the midst and do that work He has given you well while ever glorifying Him.

Praying today that you not only see the spot you have been placed in, but grow to love the purpose you hold while there and see the beauty that is being made.  Pray for me.