God is so big. He’s the Creator of the Universe, the One who created you and I, He is omniscient, knowing all that has and will happen, He’s the great author of life.
God is huge. We aren’t meant to understand all that He knows, or the reasons why He composes life the way He does because we can’t fully comprehend Him in our human minds. He is God, and we cannot fathom Him fully because of His greatness.
However, He enjoys and cares for the details as much, if not more than we do and it took just a short but sweet interaction with a woman in Vietnam for me to learn all that is in the details.
Vietnam was the halfway point on the Race, and with that I realized that I was a little anxious about going back to the States. So sometimes when things in Ho Chi Minh City reminded me of home I became uneasy. Why? Because of the unknown. What has home been without me? What will life be like when I return? Who will I go back as? There is so much big picture stuff that I don’t know the answer to or have any direction for in this moment.
One day I met a woman at the park. She speaks not one word of English so I used the little Vietnamese I learned to ask her name and she responded and pointed to me as if to ask mine in return. I told her my name is Alli and she smiled, patted my leg and said two or three times, through her giggle, “Alli-bab-wa”, a name my dad and brothers call me. A name only heard when I’m at home.
It was in that moment that I realized that for the first time in that month I thought of home in a fond, loving way. God knew that hearing that name would give me that feeling and He used that sweet woman to remind me that He loves me, that there are seasons in life that are big and He will take care of those when it’s needed, but there are also times when He wants me to focus where I am, to soak in and appreciate what comes with each passing day.
Until last month I only thought in big picture. I thought of all the things the Lord has orchestrated in my life in the big ways, the decisions that determined the course of my life in each season. I was so caught up in the big picture that I lost sight of the details. I couldn’t see Him in the small things because I limited Him to the big ones. While that’s true, while He is the God of the big things He is also a God of the small ones. He cares for the details; He delights in the small things and celebrates over them with us.
The big picture is made up of many, beautiful, small details that He winds together in just the right way. He loves and cares for us enough to orchestrate the small details in our daily lives because He is so invested in the lives of His children. The small details are not small to Him. He is showing me and teaching me to rejoice and celebrate the details that I find Him in because He too delights in them.
