"I want to love you, like nobody's ever loved you before..."

Recently, I've been immersed in the study of things like atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons.  These are all new words and concepts for my literature-minded brain, but learning a "new language" is apparently good for you, which is exactly what this feels like (verdict is still out on the whole "good for you" part).

As I was thinking about an atom today, my thoughts turned to Jesus.  In the midst of this hunt for knowledge and understanding, all of which are God given abilities and can even be worship when done to glorify Him, there is still the reality that we will never know everything.  Ever.  And the more we learn, the more we should (if we're honest) acknowledge how little we know.  So there must be more to learning than just acquiring new information.  There must be more to the story than just accumulating head knowledge to impress others or get ahead in life.  Those things seem to deliver a consistent lack of fulfillment anyways.  So what is the big picture?

I feel like the search to know things can be beautifully intercepted and enveloped by a new, consuming search to find God.  And in that searching, He is fully engaged and ready to reveal His heart and mysteries.  We search for mysteries, and at the end of the search, the point of the journey seems to be relationship--to know God in ways that are beautifully paradoxical to all of our ways.  (Sounds a little bit like friendship, eh?)

In that big picture, where do we fit?  How does our story even matter, when God is so big and we are so small?  Well, that's where my thoughts returned to the atom.  Every tiny atom is important in the make-up of all things.  The number electrons on an atom affect how it will react with other substances, and the number of protons give it definition.  Without all of those tiny parts that can't even be seen with the eye, the things that can be seen wouldn't exist.  So it goes with us, I think.  Our story may be one of billions, in addition to the billions who have lived before us, yet it matters.  In the big picture of things, our story matters more than we even understand.  How we choose to live will in some way affect generations to come, whether for good or bad.

There is something weighty about that, but not in a depressing way.  It's weighty in a joyful, purpose giving way.  To know that the story our lives are writing is situated within a bigger story, yet that our smaller part can actually start waves that ripple throughout eternity--there is something incredibly inspiring about that.  That in our compassion, our faith, our loyalty, our kindness, our integrity, our courage, our creativity, our fight for justice, righteousness, purity; in our love...there is something shifting not just our present atmosphere in the culture, but in fact the atmospheres to come.  Just think: how is it that the stories of heroes from hundreds and thousands of years ago can inspire in a way that makes you feel like they are your best friends, your mentors?  Their lives were captured within the bigger story, yet with their lives, they decided to influence the bigger story with intentional living.

These are just thoughts that have been running in my mind today as I've been asking Jesus to give me insight into my part to play--into how I can love Him in a way that only I can, because there is only one of me.  And with my life, I want to bring Him praise, regardless of what others around me are doing.  With my one little life, I can set a tone that can impact generations to come.  It is my design to set the pace, to bring the influence of heaven down on the time line of history. It is in my DNA, as a new creation, to be led by the wind of the Spirit, not tossed by the fads and ups and downs of everything around me.  It is in my right and inheritance as a daughter of God to be the fork in the road--a life that calls others higher just because I'm so in love with Him.  But I don't really think the point, at the end of the day, is really to change the world.  The point is to be God's friend, and in that place of loving, to obey whatever He says...and you obey because you couldn't imagine living any other way.