The Bigger Picture

It’s spring and my life has been a hustle and bustle of studying, writing, tutoring, social obligations, and working on projects. I start getting overwhelmed, knowing that I have less than a month left before finals, which will also mean preparing for graduation and planning where I want to continue my education in addition to scheduling my travels for the year. It’s easy for all of us to get absorbed in the activities of our own little daily lives and miss the whole reason we are doing the things we do. We get stuck in the stress of today and forget the bigger picture of what God is doing in our lives and in the world around us.

During this semester of college, I have been taking a golf class (required PE credit for science majors) that conveniently happened to be held at the golf course at the end of my block. Since all the other things I seem to get myself into tend to be a bit of a drive, including most of my college classes, I jumped at the chance for a two-minute commute to a class. Sometimes while on the golf course, I’ll look out and see my house in the distance – the house I’ve lived in for the past fourteen years with the backyard I played in as a child – and think of how small, plain, and insignificant it looks from a distance.

We tend to get so caught up in the details of our own lives and all the problems that accompany them in this fallen, sin-cursed world we live in so much that we miss the beautiful things God is doing around us. It is as if I chose one cellist in the orchestra to focus on and faded the sound coming from the rest of the orchestra. Since the melody is rarely the primary objective in the cello part, you might be confused and find it hard to figure out why the music suddenly stopped for a few seconds, started suddenly, and ended on a flat note. Looking at the individual puzzle piece of the details of our own lives, it is sometimes hard to see how it connects to all the other things around us and ultimately makes a bigger and more beautiful picture than we would have ever dreamed.

I was on one of my longer drives to another class and as I looked out of my windshield, the thought occurred to me that spring had finally come and there really were green things out there, in spite of the persistent drought conditions. In spite of the droughts in your life – whether they are struggles with relationships, finances, work, etc., – God is still working on creating something big and beautiful for the greater goal of His glory. We are not the key players or the main characters in this story of life; rather, it is all about God and His glory. We may not be able to truly see the real big picture until we reach Heaven, but by God’s grace we can see things a little bit beyond our own lives every day.