What does it look like to have a mindset of worship for our Creator? What does it look like to see Him written through every area of our lives? Among the delightful and nightmarish bustle that is college and your early twenties, the still small voice of the One Who commands fires and earthquakes can be lost. At some point, the worn pages of a Bible and the sweet melodies of hymns are forgotten in a blur of friends’ slights and professors’ deadlines and unrequited loves’ aching stings. Of course, one must take these to the Lord in prayer, but what about when we do not even remember to pray – what of the mundane moments when our vacant minds succumb to the easy lull of foolish thoughts? In a world of vanity and distractions, seeking the Savior in everything we do is easier said than done. No doubt there are many such ways to remember Christ in the mundane moments of life, but one is particularly lovely: by wondering at the eternal.
First, we must realize the importance of the eternal in our lives. “Eternal” is not merely a word to describe God’s infinite existence but is also a word to describe His great power. He is the only eternal being. There is nothing which can stand against the awesome eternality of our God. Further, He has graciously extended a form of this eternality to us, His people, by giving us a life with no end. Eternality underlines our entire faith, from our God’s own nature to our salvation.
Second, the symbolism of eternity is easily seen in daily life. To gaze upon an inky sky at midnight and to realize just how large and fiery are the tiny pinpricked stars, is to shallowly grasp something of the eternal. To then turn one’s eyes upon the grass at one’s feet and to picture the solar system of proton and neutron planets is to grasp a little more of the eternal. To go further out to galaxies and closer in to quarks is to grasp it a little more. To remember the stories of empires, then to remember that they were made up of millions upon millions of image bearers with their unique stories. This vastness is a little reminder of the eternal. To weep, not with despair, but with joy over the endless questions that close studies of philosophy or theology provide; to have the weight of God’s complexity and majesty thrust upon us is a little grasp yet again. To love someone so deeply that you can never know them well enough, that you never stop striving to know them a little better: this is a brush with the eternal. Few things are properly endless in this life, but we are surrounded by lessons in eternity, and thus lessons in God’s eternal glory and our eternal salvation.
Oh, that we might weep over calculus equations and history papers with the awed worship that laces our voices as we raise them in song. Glimpses of the eternal are one of the many handfuls of purpose that God so graciously gives. Might we never forget that they are there, waiting to be seen. So, walk beneath the silvery moon at night and admire the stars and grass; and when you are too ill to walk, consider the numbers one and two and the infinite fractions that lie between them. Such a pattern of living should inspire us to earnestly sing, “Hold thou Thy cross before my closing eyes / Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies.” (“Abide with Me.”)
