Lights over Pittsburgh

Its been a while since I have written a blog. I went home for the first time in 6 weeks for Thanksgiving last week. Ate lots of food. Caught up with some old friends. It was a good week of rest.

I flew home last monday. It was the first time I had ever flown alone. I love traveling. It is probably my favorite thing to do. After I leave Ohio, I am going to spend some serious time traveling around the country. And then Europe and eventually to Israel. Anyway...my flight took off around 4:30, so it was already dark. I got a window seat (the best seat on an airplane), and stared out as we took off. I have flown a lot over the years, but every taking off is always a rush. I love that feeling when you get sucked back into your seat. The guy next to you is grasping hand rests as hard has he can because he thinks he is going to die. I love it. I feel like a little kid when I am in an airplane. So I am looking out the window, and I see Pittsburgh so clearly lit up. There is this expanse of lights covering all the land as far as I can see. I started just thanking God for life. It was one of those moments i was just simply enjoying the fact that I am alive. So as I am looking down at the lights below, I am wondering how many people there are down there. Maybe 2 million. I dunno for sure. I could look it up. Anyway, I am thinking how amazing it is that God is listening to my prayer and knows my heart, and at the same time, knows everything about each individual that is scattered among the lights over Pittsburgh, 10,000 feet below me. In Psalm 139, the psalmist says

"O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb."

It just blew me away that night, that God not only knows every person in the city of Pittsburgh, but every person who has ever lived on planet Earth. I looked down at those lights, and tried to think what it would look like if there was a light for every person on Earth. I couldn't imagine it. There were probably close to 1 million lights that night. And they covered as far as I could see. I can not imagine looking down and seeing 6 billion and knowing each one individually, better than each person knows himself. Just think. God knows me better than I know my self. And so many times I am afraid of the future. Sometimes I fear that I won't know what job to pursue, or when I will get married, or if for some reason i won't have kids, and whether or not the Earth is going decide to stop spinning around the sun and the planet will hurl itself into space and we will all die. But I read the Psalms, and it is so clear that God knows what He is doing. God is so big that He knows the deepest desires of my heart, He knows what I need to live, and He knows how to keep the planets orbiting the sun, because He is the Creator and He has been sustaining the universe perfectly since the beginning of time.


So now I am back at the ministry house in New Philly. We leave for a service trip to Chicago tomorrow morning. We are going to be doing some work projects and handing out sandwiches to the homeless, as well as seeing the city. I am going to get to bed. It is late. God is good.


JN