“Sometimes we have a hard time seeing the bigger picture,” Chaplain Trygve Johnson stated during his sermon tonight at the last Gathering service of 2014 in Dimnent Chapel.
Maybe it’s because I’m always looking at the world from the same height.
5’6″ is a good number. Not too tall, yet not too short. I’m rather content with looking at the world from that level.
As I walk through campus every day, I see each window, brick, and person from the height of 5’6″. And with that in mind, one can imagine how easy it can be to latch onto one perspective.
But tonight, things changed. As I stood in the Chapel – then sat in the Chapel – then slid off of the pew onto the ground to pick up my notebook – I realized something. From the height of the pew, everything seemed bigger than me. And as I stood, I stood in a crowd of people, all of whom were approximately the same height.
At every height, I was still in the Chapel, still with my friends, still on November 23. But the different heights made the same situation look different.
That’s when I realized it: it is easier to see the bigger picture when we realize how small we are.
For After Worship tonight, I did something I had never done before. Instead of gathering in the front pews like most students do, my friend Delaney and I weaved through the crowd in the aisle until we were at the back of the chapel. Once there, we ran up the stairs until we reached the balcony. We were laughing, grinning, feeling the power of the Holy Spirit filling us with joy. We overflowed with light.
I stood at the railing, staring at the crowd below, and I knew I was part of a bigger plan, a dimension greater than the one I can see when I’m standing on my own two feet. I knew that if I had remained below, I would be another one of the small specks in the pews. I paused. I saw myself there, and I was humbled by thinking that when God looks down, He sees how small we are, but He loves each and every one of us with a depth that not one of us can fathom. He calls us to further His kingdom even though He knows we’re not going to be perfect. When we are in Christ, we are free. There is nothing we could do that could make Him love us less. Amazing.
As the music played, we jumped up and down. Our hands reached for the sky as if we could grab onto the “something” that was bigger than ourselves. And in that moment, I knew I was catching a glimpse of the story God is writing in each and every one of our lives.
When we look at our situations from a different height, we in turn look at our situations with greater depth. We are led closer to the truth that awaits us and closer to the plans that are prepared for us. This trades our doubt in for hope, our pain in for praise, and our plans in for His purpose to prevail.
What did you gain from the last Gathering? Tweet at me @hopesophie17. Questions or Comments? Email me at sophie.guetzko@hope.edu.