Stargazing in Caronport

18 November 2009 (12:03 a.m. to 1:51 a.m.)

I just returned from a night of stargazing beneath the most majestic sky I've ever seen. My hands are still thawing as I type, but I have some comments to share and now is the time.

First, let me just praise God for opening up new worlds for me, both personal and external. I know myself well enough that I simply never would have participated in a night like this one back home. Not because there weren't opportunities, but I've been far too uptight in the past to jump into a truck overflowing with people to skirt down a sketchy road toward an unmarked field with a bunch of my peers. And to step out into the crispy remnants of what was probably a bright yellow field before fall descended on this place. And then I looked, and behold, the most unveiled sky I'd ever seen. My village in Nova Scotia is pretty rural, but I was suddenly gripped with the revelation that east coast atmospheric currents are so diluted with pollution that we just don't know what a night sky is in the Maritimes. If words could express the blanket of ether that glows behind the stars we actually can see, the hundreds more that suddenly removed their masks... and then we closed all the truck doors and even more appeared. It makes me wonder just what kind of challenge God issued Abraham when He told him He'd make his descendants more numerous than the stars. I mean, what did Abraham see, before human civilization stripped the world of many of her former charms? This, in a manner of speaking, is precisely the kind of showing that God seems to have intended for me when He told me He'd meet me in Caronport.

Second, tonight was just an incredible bonding time with some of my peers in academia but especially in our Lord. The first thing I noticed upon exiting the Regina airport was just how much the sky hovers above and absolutely dominates the prairies. It's the kind of spectacle that really makes a person feel tiny, and yet the One who created all this knows me by name and burns with jealousy for me to love Him as He's loved me. Paul was correct when he wrote that no one has an excuse; creation constantly praises its Creator. To have a part in the lives of these people, in the unfolding of history, and in the eternal plan of God is too wonderful for me to express or comprehend. And the laughs and moments and streaking meteorites and chilled extremities and the weird balloon thing we launched into the sky are somehow all smaller then the sum total: Before I was saved, life passed me by. Now that I know God, nothing is impossible. Even the small things that are so carefully hidden, so craftily concealed by He who was pleased to reveal the greatest mysteries through childlike hearts, that I can see in hindsight why I needed to hit rock bottom and surrender to Christ before I could see any of this. It's all too simple and beautiful for a worldly person to even notice, let alone care about, let alone appreciate. Praise be to God, for He is slowly melting my cold, cold heart.

Thanks Be to God for Growth, Even the Painful Kind

When God brings someone to Bible college, man can't know all his reasons for it. But some lessons reveal deeper motives on his part: Will God become an object of study or will study draw you closer to him? Will you stand by him even when the discipline and refining process exhumes baggage that has been dormant inside you for decades?

I sit here feeling such a profound sense of pleasure in knowing him, and too much has happened for me to articulate why. But all I know is a part of the old me died last night, and all it took were some pretty simple (and silly!) acts of fellowship. Earlier this week I asked God for some encouragement, and he delivered by the truckload.

If I am being vague, it's not because I don't want to share the details. It's because if I am going to share them with you, whoever may read this, it needs to be across a table and over a coffee. The static inhumanity of technology is proving increasingly insufficient when it comes to spreading the good news. It's been a crutch, I think.