“It’s funny,” she said, “but I find myself admiring the trees across the lake in other people’s yards even more than in my own yard. I guess, from a distance, I can see the whole tree better. I can see it in its setting. I can better see its beauty.”
I don’t think she meant anything especially deep or profound in her comment. It was just an observation she shared as we all stared across the water at the glorious trees on the other side. The lovely trees in the distance.
But I’ve played it back in my mind several times today. Because it’s true.
Because sometimes we do need a little distance to gain full perspective. We have to pull back. Pan out. Push away a little so we can see the whole picture and appreciate what is actually most beautiful.
I think that’s true even in how we feel about and see ourselves. So often I notice something lovely about a friend, and if I take the time to tell her, the response is almost always a little bit of surprise and disbelief. “Oh, really? You think so? This? That? You’re sure? Wow. Thank you. I hadn’t noticed.”
I guess it is sometimes challenging to see the good or the glorious right in front of our faces. Perhaps we are too close. So focused on the minutia we miss the gift of mystery and majesty. We just don’t have the correct perspective or the full and more objective picture. Our sight line is limited.
Like when up on a mountain. We experience the rough rock and the steep slope. Our feet only focused on the next unsteady step or the precarious path ahead. We might have sweat and grime ground into our faces and pebbles in our hiking boots. And that is what we so easily and naturally zoom in on when we are up and on the mountain—the current state of ourselves. The climbing, clinging, and sometimes crawling.
But that is an entirely different view than seeing that mountain from afar, isn’t it? The breadth, the height, the scope. Not at all the same. It can be the very same mountain as the one where we felt pebbles in our shoes. The same mountain where we tripped over rough rock, but an entirely different seeing. An entirely different view.
Perspective. It is so important.
Sometimes the nitty gritty is necessary, but sometimes we need to figure out how to back away and notice the grandeur.
Like when my children were little and filled sand pails with water from the ocean. [It was a real thing with our kids]. I remember Connor doing that once and yelling excitedly, “Mom, come see the ocean in my bucket!” He was so proud. Bless him. He wasn’t wrong. That was, indeed, the ocean in his small plastic pail, but seeing that tiny splash of water in my little boy’s bucket wasn’t anything close to the vast ocean just over his shoulder.
Living up close in the midst of our pebbles and dust and messy selves it is so hard to see all the things clearly. We are like children proud with our tiny pails of water with the grand ocean over our shoulders. We look at life with our little magnifying glasses and so easily miss the miraculous. The beautiful. The breathtaking. The breadth of life.
Perhaps God, on occasion, wants to encourage us to back up a little and see more of what He sees. I remember, as a young girl, singing the song “He holds the whole world in His hands, He holds the whole world in His hands, He holds the whole world in His hands, He holds the WHOLE world in His hands.” Remember it? I have always been such a visual person. As a child I didn’t just sing those words (loudly) in chapel, but I am sure I pictured them. God literally holding the whole world. God’s hands. And where as I questioned a lot when I was young (ask my mom) I somehow didn’t question this. He held it. We sang it. End of story.
But God not only holds the whole world. He sees it. He sees it wholly. He sees it from the beginning to the end. All of it. Omnisciently. Comprehensively. Completely. Perfectly. It’s why we can trust Him with the big things in our lives and also with the very little. None of it too big. None of it too small. Only God can perfectly span the distance from minutia to majestic. Only God has hands big enough to hold it all, but to know it all and love it well. Because He is God. God. He is.
Isaiah 40 tells us,
“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord?”
And further down in the chapter …
“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”
Our God can know the very number of hairs on our head, and yet, somehow still hold the whole world in His hands. He has perfect and complete perspective, but remains personal and passionate about every detail of every one of his dear children.
Who can fathom? No one. Not one of us. We can’t even come close.
But that is why He wants us to step back and see the beauty and glory. To see the gift. Yes, to see and appreciate the small … but also to take in the majestic mountain, the vast ocean, and that glorious, glorious tree out across the lake.
Take time to look.
Take time to see.
Take time to know God.
