To the ends of the Galaxy

A few of you may not know this song, but most of you do. We sang it in church this morning:

"God of Wonders, beyond our Galaxy... You are Holy."

This morning was one of those mornings where I tried to listen to the sermon, but God was preaching a somewhat different sermon to me during the one the Pastor was delivering. This song mentioned above was the last one we sang before the sermon started and God had already started speaking to me about the compass in my heart.

I thought about what it would be like to actually be "beyond our galaxy". If anyone saw the movie "Contact", they begin the movie by panning a shot away from a house on Earth and getting farther and farther away until the Earth is a speck, then our solar system is a speck and then our galaxy is too small to be seen and the sound is completely silent and you're left with this sense of complete awe at not only how small our planet is, but also how far it is possible to be from it. And the bible intimates that God's ways are higher than our ways and his love higher than our love in the sam the heavens are higher than Earth. God is that much more holy and distant from what we are. He is holy. He is beyond all our efforts.

As I imagined being "beyond our galaxy", it just sounded like rest. It sounded wonderful! I really wanted to be with God far away from all else like couples do on their honeymoon, where there is no interference from other obligations, other people, reality in general. :)

Then I started thinking about how distant I am now from even thinking about some of those people in my life that used to mean so much to me--their opinion, I should say, meant so much. There always seems to have been someone in my life whose opinion meant the world to me. In early years, it may have been a guy I had a crush on, or a friend who never really gave me their whole self but always held something back. And that person would then become the only person in the room when they were there, and sometimes would dominate my thoughts when I wasn't around them. It was like I had a compass in my heart like that one in "Pirates of the Carribbean" that always pointed at what you really want. It would always be honed in on that particular person and what they wanted, what they thought about me, how to please them. This compass would usually cause me to ignore people more well-deserving, ignore priorities and dull my sense of responsibility.

And it seems that our heart is made to do this thing, to have someone your hearts compass is pointed towards, someone who matters above all else, an other to care about. And what amazes me is how you can look back at some of those people and wonder, "How could I have allowed that person to mean so much to me?" And yet in the chronicle of a man stranded on an island portrayed in "Castaway", Tom Hanks' character becomes attached to a volleyball that he paints a face on and calls Wilson and truly mourns when the ball is lost in the ocean.

I am amazed at my own capacity to become too attached when I look back at the people in my life with a now objective perspective. I look at grade school pictures of some of the kids I had crushes on and they just look like regular school kids to me now... nothing that stepped off the pages of GQ or anything. And when I was in the work force, the early years, I was around people that I probably would never come across otherwise in my life. I worked at Merry Maids my last semester of college, and most of the women I worked with were very lower income and a few lived in trailers and there was this one women, Gloria, who befriended me who I became very emotionally entangled in the ups and downs of her crazy life. I probably treasured her acceptance because I wasn't exactly the most popular in that group of women, probably since they knew that they had to do this to make a living and I was just making a few extra bucks before I graduated from college and got married. So that fact that she befriended me was received by me with incredible gratitude. Now this woman means nothing to me...simply not on my radar.

Then there was Kim, a 20-something waitress at a Shoney's restaurant. This was a very unglamorous job with unglamorous people. I worked with her after my freshman year in college. I cared about whether she thought I was a good waitress and treasured her friendship. Now I don't even think about her.

I could list many others, but those are the ones that stick out the most for now.

So what this all brought me to actually tied back into the sermon from this morning. Psalm 86:11 says "Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." And the main idea of the sermon was to know truth, who is a person, Jesus. And our life should be ordered by that truth, or by that person, as is the case. And our problem tends to be that don't have one truth settled in our heart and we order our lives without Jesus as the central principle through which all our decisions are made. I think of an undivided heart as a heart whose compass completely fixed on Jesus.

So the rest that I felt in my heart as I imagined going to the ends of the universe to be with Jesus and everything else grows dim, that is the rest I want without actually having to be separated from people and responsibilities. People would stress me out alot less if I realized how much more important God's opinion is and their opinion would fade into nothingness. I want to have that confidence with people that I would have after a long separation, but I want to separate myself now, in my heart, without actually being separated from the people.

Those people from the past aren't even on my radar anymore.

Lord, can I live this way? Can live beyond the radar and in your embrace? I want to draw near to my Holy God and as I grasp, with the help of your Spirit, Lord, how much more you are, how much beyond, how much better... as I grasp this, all fear of man would simply fall off the radar. Lord, fix the compass of my heart on you. Give me an undivided heart. I pray that you would be the only one whose opinion matters and that I would do everything as unto you.

From 1 Corinthians 7:

29What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; 30those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
32I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

Lord, let my heart be married to you alone.