"Big Sky"

I want you to see it.

On August 15, 2009 (the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, by the way), I was out in Ozark, Arkansas, up on Mulberry Mountain with two friends at the Harvest Music Festival, enjoying the wonderful - absolutely gorgeous - sounds of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils after seeing a sunset that I am not ashamed to say evoked tears.

As the envelope of dusk surrounded the horizons and the stars began to multiply in the darkness, I leaned back and gazed upward into the vastness of the universe, and Heaven gazed back. The stars were in rare brilliant form that night. The sky was perfectly clear; not a whiff of a cloud remained from that unbelievably gorgeous sunset. (After all, what is a sunset without the right clouds?) And even though the lights from the stage and the parking area were still nearby, we were seated in just the right spot so none of those lights got directly into our eyes. The other light pollution - that awful orange glow from the cities - was barely perceptible, we were so far out in the remote stretches of the mountains.

As the night went on, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils left the stage, and we were now all just enjoying the breeze of the evening, sharing a lazy conversation between close friends, staring into the glory of the night, waiting for Umphrey's McGee to play.

(That last part about Umphrey's McGee has no bearing on the story other than me bragging to the three of you who read this and care about Umphrey's McGee.)

As I stared - slack-jawed with the same awe and wonder I felt stargazing with my Wolf Scout Den in my backyard at seven years old - I couldn't help but take in the dazzling brilliance of the constellations. It was no mystery to me in that moment how the ancients were able to pick out so many of those shapes - how could they be avoided? I was seeing constellations I couldn't even name, but I knew their shapes. The shapes just popped out! They were inevitable! It was incredible, but it was exhausting. I jumped from constellation to constellation with this palpable excitement, so taken in with all the details in each one that I couldn't just pick one and stay with it. I had to keep looking at the next one.

And that's when Ben suddenly jumped in his seat and shouted out to me, "AARON! AARON! DID YOU SEE IT?"

I sat in stunned silence for a second. Ben might be an excitable guy, but that much of a reaction means I just missed the Millenium Falcon flying by or something equally impressive.

"Uhh... no...? Don't think I did, dude... What was it?"

"THE SKY! IT BECAME ONE! JUST... ONE! BIG! IT'S SO BIG!"

"What?" The sky is one? Of course it is. Did you think there were three skies? And yeah, it's big. It's space. Space is big. "What are you talking about, man?"

"...oh. Well... Nevermind. You'll... ugh. Just... Nevermind." I could tell Ben was disappointed. Whatever it was he had seen, it was impressive, but it wasn't something he could properly describe, apparently.

"OK..."

So I went back to staring at the sky, still jumping from constellation to constellation. I finally got to a point where I was starting to appreciate the stars between the constellations. The nameless twinkling dots and sparkling spots waaaaaay off in the distance, the ones I could only see on nights like this, they were the ones that held my attention for a while. And then I noticed something shifting.

At first it was subtle. If you've done much stargazing, you've either heard or figured out the trick about getting a good long look at faint stars with the naked eye. You can't look directly at them, that's the thing. You've got to look just off of it. You'll actually see it better if it isn't your main focus.

Well, if you're sitting in a field on top of a mountain in Northwest Arkansas on a crystal clear night without any lights in the sky other than the ones God put there, it doesn't matter where you look, you're gonna be not-directly-looking at a WHOLE LOT of stars.

So your vision spreads out a little.

And as you slowly scan your way across the sky, absorbing more and more of the billions and billions and billions of stars in front of you, your vision continues to widen and broaden and spread.

And then, in one sudden, jarring twinkling of an eye, everything falls into place. From horizon to horizon in any and all directions, you just see it. It's all there. The whole sky, all at once. The sky becomes one vast expanse filling your entire field of vision. And it is just.

So.

Very.

Big.

"WHOA! BEN! BEN! I SAW IT! DUDE! WOW! THAT'S AWESOME! IT'S HUGE!"

"I KNOW, RIGHT?!?"

"WOW! IT'S SO AWESOME!"

I know that, right now - unless you've had a "big sky" of your own - you're thinking like I was: "Well, yeah, of course the sky's big. It's the sky. It's space. Space is big. Duh." But I promise you, unless you've seen what I'm talking about, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

It is so unbelievably BIG.

It's so big - so very, very, very big - that even though I was sitting down when it hit me, I still lost my sense of balance and nearly fell out of the chair. Once I saw it, it was inescapable. Everywhere I looked - unless I was looking straight down at the ground - I was just aware of the hugeness of the sky over me. Even if there was just a corner of the sky with one or two stars twinkling in the peripheral of one eye, it was still incomprehensibly huge. So big. So, so, so big.

And the really fun part is that it hasn't left me yet. Nearly a year out now, and still every time I go outside, day or night, clear or cloudy, city or country, it doesn't matter - I look up, and I see the enormity of it all. I look up and I still am aware of how insignificant I am on a cosmic scale. I'm 6'3", and have been known to tip the scales at 400+ pounds. I am a big guy. I am not accustomed to feeling small. But when I realized the enormity of the cosmos in one fell swoop... Oh, I was so small. I was a mote of dust. No, no, scratch that... I wasn't even a mote of dust. I was one of the gluons that holds together the quarks that make up the protons that make up the atoms that make up the elements that make up the compounds that make up the molecules that make up that mote of dust. I was so aware of my infinitesimal insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe...

And it was glorious.

Ever since that night, whenever Ben and I wind up out with the guys under a big open stretch of the heavens, we try to help them see it. We try to get them to see "big sky." We try to show them what we saw.

I want you to see it.

I've been on a really interesting journey into new depths with my faith over the past two years and some change. I've been in completely unfamiliar territory at times, and I'm still breaking new ground every day. I'm still experiencing new things that make me think about God in a different way, and I experience those things all the time. It's been an exponential amount of growth, especially since mid-November. Things have just REALLY been flying. It's been really intense at times, but through it all, God has just shown me more and more and more and more of His Power and His Glory. It's been a trip.

And it's still going.

I don't want to sound arrogant here. I don't want it to sound like I've got some big direct line into God that others don't, so therefore I'm better than anyone else. Believe me, I'm not. I don't have anything anyone else can't have. I don't know anything anyone else can't know. I don't see anything anyone else can't see.

But there are people out there who don't see it. There are people out there - I talk to them every day - who don't see how God is not just a part of your life, He IS Life.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, because it's an important point: a relationship with God - true Christianity - is not something you do, it's what you are. It redefines you.

It is possible to go through life making time for God in between everything else, and that will bring moments of true connection, but they'll be moments. They'll be fleeting. It will be a mountaintop experience filled with long-dormant emotions, churning a stagnant spirit into a frothing, raging, active pool of activity, but it will die down again, leading to a tranquil calm that gives way to the same stagnancy without ever doing anything but stirring things around.

But what if people really made God the first priority, instead of squeezing Him in where they could?

And I don't mean setting aside the first part of the day for a devotional thought and prayer - although that is a wonderful tool which definitely makes an impact on the day - but instead making God the first thought in every moment, the subject at the forefront of the mind at all times, the never-wavering, never-changing, always-present, always-steady fixed object that we have our sights completely set on, the target we are irresistibly drawn to...

What if God was the only thing that mattered?

If you were completely focused on God, how do you think you'd act around other people?

How would you treat your family? Your significant other? Your kids? Your parents? Your co-workers? Your superiors? Your subordinates? Your insubordinates?

How would you treat yourself?

How would you treat God?

How do you think God would treat you?

I've gotta tell you - I don't know where you are. I wish I did. Because if you're farther along than me, I want to know how God got you there. But if you've not made it to where I am yet, I really want to help you get closer, because trust me, it's amazing out here.

I really want you to know God. I don't want you to know Him the way I know Him - that's between me and Him. I want you to know Him the way He wants you to know Him. I want you to know Him intimately. I want you to know Him genuinely. I want you to know Him first.

I want you to be in Nature and see His design in such a way that you cannot help but be amazed with every single thing laid out before you.

I want you to be in church and know His people in such a way that you cannot help but be moved with joy and compassion for every single one of them, anxious to show them the same Love that God showed you, because you know that He loves them, too.

I want you to be in silence and hear His voice in such a way that you cannot help but understand that He has a plan for you, every single day, and that you can know that plan and follow that plan and feel the indescribable thrill that comes through seeing the power of God manifest itself in your life in ways that you know - that you know, beyond any shadow of a doubt - can only be a direct result of the work of God.

I want you to be there because I want you to feel what I'm feeling. I want you to know what I know. I want you to see what I see.

I want you to see it.

Some of you already do. And that's amazing. I love it. And you know when somebody's seeing the same thing as you. When it becomes the only thing you're really looking at, it becomes unmistakable when you meet someone else who gets it, someone else who is completely locked in on the same thing. There is a unity in the Spirit that is positively electric and impossible to miss.

I want you to see it.

There's a calm that comes with it. There's a sense of complete serenity in knowing - really, entirely, personally knowing - that your sins are all forgiven and all removed and all forgotten. There's a joy in knowing that you've got a direction in life that will make an impact on an eternal scale. There's a passion in knowing that God has a direct connection, a deep commitment, a holy investment in what YOU do, in where YOU go, in what YOU say, in who YOU are.

I want you to see it.

There's an understanding that comes to you in the Bible when you have God at the absolute center of your life, providing the Director's Commentary with everything you read. There's a sense of connection between everything you do, because all that is in your life is part of one grand symphony of praise, an orchestrated movement of hundreds of different parts to create one sweeping work, with ups and downs, highs and lows, forte and piano, lights and darks...

I want you to see it.

I want you to know what life is like when you finally take that step into the mystic with God. I want you to feel the exhilaration of giving up all control - ALL of it! - into God's hands and seeing where He leads you. I want you to feel the freedom that comes with fully immersing yourself into God's Spirit and living completely, completely, completely in line with His Will for you.

I want you to see it.

I want you to know what it's like to have a relationship with God that doesn't require anyone but you and God. I also want you to know what it's like to have a relationship with God that won't let you keep it just between you and God. I want you to know what it's like to talk to God like you're talking to your best friend, but I want you to know what it's like to talk to a complete stranger about God because you can't help but talk about Him.

I want you to see it.

Let us acknowledge the LORD;

let us press on to acknowledge Him.

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.

- Hosea 6:3

I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord;

apart from you I have no good thing."

- Psalm 16:2

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

- Deuteronomy 6:4-5

I want you to see it.

I really, really want you to see it.

I want you to see Him.