There’s something about the sky that makes me silent. I could gaze at it for hours, getting lost in its moment-to-moment changes. If I find myself cooped up inside when the sun is setting, impatience descends over me and I feel like I’m being robbed of something.
And while I’ve seen many metaphors in the sky, one of my favorites is the one I just read in Isaiah 40. “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?” (40:12). I absolutely love how holding the heavens is akin to holding the waters here-- bodies of water often look like mirrors of the sky, and if that isn’t enough, the sky itself contains loads of water with the many gallons clouds carry. This image is all-encompassing. His hands are holding both the earthly waters and the heavenly skies. His hands are cupping this world we know, hemming us in above and below. What a wonder-filled thought! Every time we gaze at the heavenly sky or the earthly waters, we’re beholding His hand, canopied above us in a perpetual sign of blessing and blanketed below us in a perpetual catching. He’s holding us in the palm of His hand.
“Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him and who taught him the right way?” (Isaiah 40:13-14).
Dear reader, I’ve had some dreams swept out from beneath my feet this year, and maybe you have too. It’s a hard place to be. “Who has understood the mind of the Lord?” Not I. But I’m learning that it’s possible to be content in the not-knowing-places; that even when we don’t know the “why” of certain pain, we can be confident that there is Someone who knows. And somehow, in some way, even without our knowledge or our permission, He is working for our good. We can trust Him, because His dreams for us have proven themselves time and time again to be more extravagant and lovely than our own dreams for ourselves could ever be.
Lord, I’m giving you my dreams--tossing them up into your heavenly hands so they can dissipate in all that soft blue air, so they can fracture into a million tiny slivers of light-- for they’re at home up there in the sky, in your hands, and you make beauty shine out of broken dreams.
“‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:25-26).
Intricate intention. There is a perpetual purpose in this design. Yes, Lord, you know my every dream, my every longing; not one of them is missing in your mind-book. How incredible is it that You are laying out my life as you’ve laid out the constellations-- that the same hands that formed the heavens are forming my life! Each star, a stone perfectly placed in the labyrinth you’re making of me. And where my impatient soul breezes past the beauty, where my tainted sight can only see fractured light and shattered stone in broken dreams, you see it from above and below and all around and within and you know how everything is coming to center, because you’re the one carrying it there. All the broken pieces are returning to their source and will be whole again. And somehow by some miracle, my own inability to see the beauty in the brokenness doesn’t prevent it from existing; my own blindness to the purpose in things doesn’t keep it from persisting.
Lord, forgive me for all the times I’ve cried out to you in my blindness: “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God!” (Isaiah 40:27). I felt those things this year when some of my dreams laid in shattered pieces around me. And there were moments I was in such a stupor that I didn’t even cry out to you, but my soul spoke those words silently to you and I know you heard them. My self-pitying tears streaked my vision and the crisp lines of purpose in the world surrounding me blurred into confusion and chaos. I told myself there is no intricacy, no intentionality, but all the while you were whispering truths in my ears-- You found another way into my heart since my sight was tainted. You whispered truths to me of Who is holding every part of me and my story together, Who is laying my path’s stones, Who is untangling the mess of contradictions my life seems to be and layering them into labyrinths, bringing them to their rightful center-- You. I see now that it was always you. Was my heart not burning within me? Eventually, the glimpses of beauty brought me right back to the center of your palm. Oh, let me live in that place forever and ever!
And here it is Advent! And the question waits for answering-- what does Christ’s birth have to do with Isaiah 40? The “look into the heavens” becomes “look around you.” Heaven comes down to touch the earth. And now we are not walking alone on our pathways, but we have a Comforter and Friend beside us. And the One ordering the chaos is not confined to a distant kingdom, but a present and abiding kingdom. And that means that all of our deepest longings, our most earnest hopes, are not fulfilled by a lofty and detached god, but by Emmanuel, God with us. He is as close to us as a baby in the womb. Present not only in our surrounding world, but within us. We could compare him to our dearest friend, but yet he is more dear than any friend we’ve ever known. For words misconstrue things and even the pictures we paint for our most precious earthly friends are not complete pictures of our true inner selves. No, this is a Friend who does not even need words. Who knows us before we tell him. Who knows us, wonder of wonders, more deeply than we know ourselves.
And when we choose to walk with such a Friend, we can know what is down the path for us. For he tells us we “will enter Zion singing; everlasting joy will crown [our] heads. Gladness and joy will overtake [us] and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isaiah 35:10). The center of the labyrinth. He’s leading us there! Oh, let’s go dancing on this path then! Let’s lift up our hands for him to twirl us, so we can fall dizzy with delight in his arms again.
Let’s soften the mossy stones with our footwork and wake up the worlds hidden within them. For there are mysteries we’ve been missing. And there’s time enough for tears--I’ve used it--so let’s rejoice! Oh how my heart is aching for it all!