The View Of The Stars 12

April 15, 2014

Today's contemplations are not thoughts of my own, but those of the great Danish theologian, Søren Kierkegaard. What he has to say is especially challenging to me as I hardly ever risk as much as I should. God is with us when we are timid and when we are bold. However, when we are bold, it is when we can feel His power the strongest.

"When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then his is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him, and it is not dark close around him. But precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason, he cannot see the stars. For his lights obscure the stars, which the poor peasant, driving without lights, can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones lie in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in their prosperity and good days they have, as it were, lanterns lighted, and close about them everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable - but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars."

God has created us tiny creatures in a big world, not just a physically big one, but also a rich one. The simplest things can and should stir us. To become like a child, Jesus said, is a pre-requisite for entering heaven (Matthew 18:3). What does that mean? It means to experience God with the same excitement that a child does. Even though we find so much amusement in children, they enjoy looking at their toes and their hands, experiencing a tickle, tasting chocolate, or mimicking expressions more than we do. Enjoy God, and enjoy His world. Like C.S. Lewis, feel the sun-like beams of God warm your face, and then stare up that sunbeam into the face of the LORD Almighty. Turn off the lanterns that make you feel safe and experience God. Risk is a necessary, scary, beautiful element of life.

INTROSPECTION: This is nothing new to me. I have always known that I don't enjoy life or God as much as I should. Obviously, Bible reading and prayer help. Reading books help, especially John Piper, Charles Spurgeon, Mark Driscoll, or Saint Augustine. Time permitting, I need to plug back into music more as well. It seems that the more time my mind focuses on school and its own difficulties, the more dissatisfied I become. With finals coming up, that may become more and more necessary, but I pray that God would liberate me from a dissatisfaction rooted in my own, self-loving heart.

~ The Fragile Grey Heart

Psalm 8:3, 4: "When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"