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It is I Who
“Why do all these stars look the same?” I asked myself. In Bozeman Montana, 2008, I was sitting at home; my roommates had gone out for the night. I decided to not be a slouch, so I put on my warm gear and walked outside of the double-wide trailer home I lived in. Down the steps I walked, heading toward my car. I remember it was cold enough to see my breath for at least two feet in front of my face. Hopping on the trunk of my car, I put my back to the window and gazed up at the moonlit sky. My mind became fixed on the billions of stars.
Have you ever pondered the luminous characteristics of the stars? I ask because it has much do with how we treasure Jesus in our hearts. I am sure that you may have thought about the luminous characteristics of the stars. Who wouldn’t? There are literally billions and billions of stars in our galaxy alone, not to mention all the other galaxies we can’t see. There is something about when our minds and hearts perceive the loveliness and details of creation that should put our hearts in a posture of awe.
The first verse many churchgoers think of, as it relates to us and the stars, is Psalms 147: 3–4, “He heals the broken hearted… He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.” I love this verse. This text, in theory, is supposed to remind us of our distinctiveness and preciousness to God.
I have sung Chris Tomlin’s song, “Indiscernible,” at so many retreats and different functions around the world, that I can belt out the name of the song when a guitarist only strums the first few notes. The part of the song that puts my heart in a state of awe goes something like this: “Indescribable, uncontainable, You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name, you are amazing God. All powerful, untamable, awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim, You are amazing God.”
The stars are not just thought of and described as beautiful by Christians. You can be a non-Christian and still have professed that the stars are beautiful, it is just that we Christians attribute it to God. I have met plenty of travelers, outdoorsmen, and deep thinkers who are not Christians, but enjoy the chance to sit under the stars. Mark Twain in, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written in 1884, wrote this in his book:
“We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened—Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many.”
The stars have been a universal enjoyment for centuries. In our childhood aspirations, we quietly dreamt of the day we could be an astronaut who would fly out into outer space just so we could touch the stars with our “pointing finger.” In our coloring books, we innocently scribbled a stick figure representation of our family in the sky among all the stars. There is something about the stars that, when our eyes gaze upon the loveliness and details of them, it puts our hearts in a state of awe and wonder. It does not matter if you are a Christian or a non-Christian. You do not have to be an astrophysicist to see the stars as lovely.
But the question that I want to ask is this: Have you ever had distaste in your mouth, or a disgusted feeling in your gut when you gazed upon the stars? The answer is probably “no,” right? But I did. I have come to understand that the number-one reason that question is extremely relevant to you, also, is because it has something to do with how profoundly you have understood the person of Jesus. I will explain what happened to me.
“Why do all the stars look the same?” I asked myself. From my vantage point, on the top of my car, they were just plain old white stars. They were little white dots sprayed onto the moonlit sky, by what looked like paint splatters from a newborn baby with no supervision. I guess I never noticed it before, like I did that night in Bozeman. That night was so frustrating. I concluded that it did not matter how far I look to my left or to my right, the stars will still be the same everywhere. They looked weak and pointless, these stars.
Instead of being in awe, seemingly like the rest of the world and like Christians who have believed Psalms 147, my conclusion rendered all the stars useless, unenjoyable, andnot awe-worthy. I knew I was viewing these stars in the wrong way, but I could not put my finger on why. Seeing the stars as useless made my heart gloomy, and my emotions got to the point where I regretted that I gazed upon the stars that night.
Would you call me crazy for thinking like this about the stars? I hope you would agree that it was not a normal or healthy response. I was not enthralled with the splendor of God’s creation that night, or any other night or for that matter. I seldom looked at the stars with a sense of awe and amazement. But during that moment in Bozeman, when I actually realized the stars were unenjoyable to me, my mind was overtaken by perplexities. My confusion was: Why would God make something that is so enjoyable to the rest of the world look so unenjoyable to me? Why don’t we just get rid of them? “Unawe-worthy” was one of the words that came into my mind. Who says that about God’s creation? Unawe-worthy? Who did I think I was to say such a thing to a holy God? It even sounds a little crazier to think about it now, as I write this sentence to myself and to you.
Three years later (2011), while in Seattle, the pieces of insecurities in my life, and how I viewed these “white stars,” began to mesh. I remember the day like I remember the one snowy day in California. It was the point of the day where the sun was nearest to the morning waters. The busy sound of the city was so obsolete in my three-hundred-square-foot studio apartment. In these moments, the experience was filled with much revelation. I felt that I was heading toward some monumental discovery in my life. I experienced a sensation in my thoughts like a carpenter would when he is ready to place the last piece of wood to a finish project.
“It is I who felt as though I needed to be greatest star in order to be loved and appreciated!” I emphatically proclaimed. “Ah yes, that is exactly what is!”
I now realize that what I had imagined was this: if I were a star, I would feel completely useless, because there was nothing that indicated that I was in any way awesome. I was just one little white dot among many other white dots. I had imagined, back then in Bozeman, that, because the stars were not awe-worthy to me, I was for sure not awe-worthy to God or people. And yet, maybe that was the problem; I wanted to be awe-worthy. The insecurity was that I felt I had to be the greatest in order to be lovely.
After all that I had experienced with the stars that one night, and as I continue on in my Christian faith, I came to an overarching conclusion: The greatest insecurity of mankind is the insecurity that we feel we have to be the greatest in order to be loved, appreciated, significant, or just acknowledged as a human being.
To this day, I am amazed at how God pieced my story and the stars together. It was not intuitive to bridge the profound concepts together. But for the sake of the glory of God to more fully treasure the person of Jesus, it has come together in this book. For this reason and many others, you must keep reading.
WHY YOU MUST KEEP READING
This next sentence will probably be the most important sentence in this book, so please do not flip the page just yet. You must keep reading because God does not like this insecurity at all. God has very astonishing words for people with this insecurity, and it is unlike the self-encouraging words we normally get from therapy sessions. His words are more ones of shock and amazement, much like seeing the devastating effects of an earthquake or a nuclear explosion. Therefore we will need to see from the Bible where such insecurities exist, and why God is angry as a result.
You must continue reading if you have ever said or thought the following: “I never feel like I am good enough for this person.”
“I do not know what he/she sees in me.”
“How could God love me?”