This past Saturday, I was really overwhelmed with homework and church stuff and just the busyness of my own life. I was not motivated to read my Bible, so I didn’t even bother. I was tired of just trying on my own merit. I had resolved to lock myself up in the basement of my dorm and do homework all day. But I didn’t… because it would have been too much of a hassle to carry everything downstairs (God forbid!). I worked on my homework in the morning and into the afternoon.
My discipleship team (my group from church) was hosting a “trash run” in which they would go around the dorms just knocking on people’s doors and taking out their trash and recycling as a form of service. Sounds so fun, right? Especially if you are a recluse like I often am and you don’t like to be in bad moods around other people. I knew that I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t decide, whether it was morally good for me to go, endangering people with my false motives and impatience.
Now by the time I was supposed to leave, I finished all of my homework by some miracle. I’m not exaggerating about that miracle thing. That never happens. I never finish my homework within a matter of hours. Having run out of excuses, I chugged some caffeinated Dr. Pep and went reluctantly on my way.
We met outside. It was cold and windy. And I was too skeptical about everything to have brought a coat. My friends all had smiles on their faces and seemed way too excited to be dealing with the rubbish of strangers. I wondered how the heck they could be so genuinely joyful all the time – it just didn’t seem logical to me. If I tried to do that, I told myself, it would only be “acting.” So instead of being the grump I thought that I authentically was, I “acted.” I put a smile on my face and went along with it. I sucked it up and held my breath – and not just because the garbage stunk.
As we went around serving people, my attitude changed a little, but I was still discouraged and alienated from this joy that I knew I lacked. What was wrong with me?
The sun went down on my frustration, and that night I found myself walking back to my dorm alone in darkness. As I walked, and I glanced up at the sky. Surrounding the mysterious moon were these carefully-placed, unknowably ancient stars twinkling with a curiously blue hue.
When I looked up at the stars just then – I think that’s when God spoke to my heart. Through the loudness of all of my complaints and feelings of isolation, this thought came into my head: “I put these here just for you.”
Why had I been so downcast? I have a God who loves me – a Father who sent these huge blue spheres hurdling through space, not just for fun, but so His children just like me could look up at them. So His children could realize that they, too, may feel small, but that they are much bigger in His eyes than even these supermassive orbs lighting up the night.
In the midst of my own negativity about everything, I had forgotten that there is a God who loves me, and my whole purpose in doing good is to love Him back. I had been worrying about taking care of my own needs, when no one does a better job but He who knows my needs – and fulfills every one of them Himself.
“Maybe I’ve been the problem,
Maybe I’m the one to blame,
But even when I turn it off and blame myself,
The outcome feels the same
I’ve been thinking maybe I’ve been partly cloudy,
Maybe I’m the chance of rain;
Maybe I’m overcast, and maybe
All my luck’s washed down the drain
I’ve been thinking ’bout everyone,
Everyone, you look so lonely
But when I look at the stars,
I see someone else
When I look at the stars,
the stars, I feel like myself”
Lyrics to Stars by Switchfoot
