Underneath the night sky the fields around me could only be seen as a shadowy profile, and for a while it felt as if I were suspended in space while I ran through our local country. The only source of light came from the stars above, and for a time they were my only reference point. Normally the motion of the shrubs and gravel beneath me would give a sense of how fast I was going, but with only the canopy of stars stretching out to the horizon visible on all sides – it seemed as if I was completely motionless. My legs were moving, and the cool air filling my lungs with every step, but I may as well have been running in place. I thought about everything going on in my life, the relationships, drama, future goals… and for a while it all seemed strangely irrelevant. When I was forced to measure my progress by something much higher than me – it changed how I felt about what really mattered.
Oddly enough, the vastness of space around me didn’t leave me feeling lonely and insignificant… but loved. Even though the greatness of everything around me emphasized my own smallness, I wasn’t despised for that smallness… but Known. It was as if I was just a single grain of sand among all the seashores of the earth… and yet every craggy little detail was understood, familiar, and even treasured by the Maker of them all. I wasn’t the first to feel this way by simply looking up into the night sky, but the emotions flooding my soul have doubtless been felt since the beginning of time. David wrote about it in Psalm 8:3, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained: What is man, that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, that you visit him?” It was not so much the greatness of creation that moved David… but the knowledge that he was loved by the Creator.
We hear about the love of God all the time, and for many the very idea has become a trivial and empty repetition. When you have heard it enough times it can begin to sound generic and even patronizing… as if the love of God were only a last resort encouragement for those who have nothing better. But when you actually know that love in a real and personal way… everything changes. Although the ‘principle’ of love itself is general and universally understood, it must be experienced personally before it has any meaning. Love is tirelessly written about, sung about, and spoken about… but it never gets old because it is continually experienced afresh and anew. If Love was only an idea or concept that could not be experienced – we would have little poetry, songs, and films dedicated to the subject. Once you personally know the love of God, you will understand the passion that has driven people like David to write endlessly about a subject that is only an abstraction for many.
Love has a way of changing the perspective of those who are in it – and we use phrases like, ‘lost in the clouds’ or ‘riding on air’ to describe them. For those who are in love, everything in their reality revolves around the one who they love. The things that were important to them before suddenly lose much of their importance. Where the opinions and thoughts of others had great weight in their lives, those same opinions and thoughts mean little next to those of their Love. It is not that they don’t care about others anymore… in fact Love has a way of softening even the hardest of hearts to others. Their priorities in Life however revolve entirely around the person they love – and their desire is always towards them. When it comes to God, the Apostle Paul put it like this, “For whether we be beside ourselves(experiencing His Love), it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constrains(captivates) us…” -2 Cor. 5:13-14
Also for those in love, the circumstances that are normally troubling don’t seem to be so intense. Financial difficulties, uncertainty about the future, and even physical pain are softened in the embrace of that person. There could be no greater authority on the truth of this than the Apostle Paul, who was beaten, shipwrecked several times, persecuted, and rejected by friends, said, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” -2 Cor. 4:17 The only way Paul could ever have called the things he went through ‘light’ was because he was in love! Like my run that night, Paul was focused on things greater than him, and was consciously aware of God’s love for him in every moment.
