My granddaughter Scarlett picked blueberries with her Poppy recently. It was the very first batch from our wild blueberry bush. She had learned from our instruction to pick only the ripened ones, leaving the green berries for another day. After picking, she showed me her stash of berries, and we counted them, sixteen in all. Only a handful for me, but she was so proud of them. Not only that, she lined them up in the bowl, making a big smiley circle around the edge, and then pointed to the ones that Poppy picked for her. She knew each and every one. This made me smile and think about how micro her world is at three years old.
I reflected back to a time when I saw a glimpse of the macro world. I was in that same blueberry yard, only then, many years ago, I was mowing it on our riding lawn mower. I used my mowing time back then to reflect on life, de-stress, and pray. There was something about the roar of the machine and the sun beating down on me and not being disturbed for a while gave me pause to think.
While making my rows, circling back, and praying to God, (or possibly complaining to Him), I heard Him whisper to me, even over the loud mower.
He simply said, “Look up.”
When I did, I first noticed the big, beautiful sky. It was as blue as a robin’s egg, and the clouds were brilliantly white and so puffy that I felt I could reach up and pluck one and hug it into my chest.
That looking up, that glance upwards at the sky and clouds made me realize, at that moment, that I had been focusing on all the minutia of my life so hard that I was failing to look at the big picture, the big plan.
The thing is, God sees both. He sees like my granddaughter. The tiny things. He sees the birds and the berries. But He also knows the big picture. And, what’s more, He doesn’t just know today, He knows tomorrow. He sees the big and little, the macro and micro.
Many times, we are fixated on our micro life, our little selves, and what is happening now. Help us to look up, Oh Lord. Help us know that, even if we cannot see anything beyond our micro lives, that You do. You see all, You’ve got me.
Matthew 6:25-26 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"