On Remembering I’m Small

I’m sitting at the beach, watching my 12-year old paint her legs with sand. Dolphins keep peeking out in the horizon, their glossy fins enough to make us newbies look twice. We wonder what swims not far from where we just stood. “Look!” I call out over the waves to my children. “Dolphins!” I point ferociously while they scan the sea (never in the direction I’m pointing). We keep watching even when others have moved on. I don’t want to stop delighting at the sight of dolphins not at Sea World. The aquarium is before us in all its vastness and I can’t stop staring. I come to the ocean to remember I’m small, and I’m never disappointed.

These past six months have been an ocean of their own, building in strength and severity. The waves come unabated, one after another. A lost job. Shelter in place. Incompletes. Cancellations and disappointments and opportunities gone for good. The sand has turned to concrete and we can’t move as the ocean swells before us. We remember we’re small, wonder if we’ll drown.

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I spent much of my summer writing a paper on Daniel 9:24-27. It’s one of those prophecies that’s provoked thousands of pages of commentaries, with scholars analyzing and picking apart each detail in hopes that the angel’s mysterious words will become clear. I can’t say I figured the passage out in my assigned 12 pages. If you want to feel small, just study eschatology. Or the prophets. In Hebrew.

The chapter opens with Daniel praying on behalf of God’s people who have been in exile for seventy years. They’ve utterly failed, acting in rebellion, idolatry, apostasy. And yet, Daniel appeals to God’s covenant with his redeemed people. He remembers the prayer at the dedication of the temple, when Solomon implores God to respond when his people repent and cry out for mercy. Here, Daniel offers the prayer God has promised to answer (2 Chron 7:14). He humbly confesses the people’s sin and pleads for mercy: “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act” (Dan 9:19).

And God does answer. In that moment, he sends his angel Gabriel with a message to give Daniel hope. God will act. He will bring an end to his people’s suffering. The promises of the covenant stand.

And yet, he lifts Daniel’s eyes to look beyond temporal restoration to an eschatological future. Yes, the Lord will answer his prayer to forgive and restore his people and their temple, but God’s purposes are bigger and more expansive than just that. He will usher in his new covenant and bring it to its ultimate fulfillment. He will not restore an old kingdom to its earthly glory, he will usher in an everlasting one, secured by the blood of a perfect sacrifice and vindicated in judgment by a conquering king. Though his people will suffer in waiting, their suffering is limited. The end is decreed. One day, the curse will finally and ultimately be vanquished because the anointed one, the prince, is seated upon the throne.

We might wonder if this word offers any real comfort. The promise of war, devastation, desolation. The hope of restoration far into the future. My plan is much bigger than this, the Lord assures Daniel. His suffering – our suffering – is just a little speck on the timeline of history, working towards a future God has ordained. We are small, insignificant, our stories lost in the larger one being written. It’s all part of the plan.

But if we’re honest, sometimes, we want to sneak our way centerstage and see if anyone is paying attention. We mistake small for forgotten, waiting for abandoned.

We forget that the conquering king had to first hang upon a bloodied cross. The path to glory is paved with suffering, and I’m not the first to walk this way, lamenting the pain and the thorns and the certainty of death.

There’s comfort in looking up over the waves, realizing these small moments make up a story that’s already been written. History marches onward to a glorious end, and I’m there in the midst of it.

Poor and needy that I am, the Lord takes thought for me.

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I sat in a professor’s office the other day, trying to design an independent study to fulfill my last two unallocated credits. I’m desperate to bring all of this together, to figure out what the point of this education is, where I’ll take it from here. We talked through my many questions and the best way to go about answering them.

“This is too broad,” he told me. “We need to focus.” He did this while handing me book after book from his shelves, each one unrelated to the one before it.

I laughed a little. Of course it’s too broad. If seminary has taught me anything, it’s that there’s so much I don’t know. I have more questions than answers. There’s the vastness of an incomprehensible God set before me, each class an invitation to take a sip from a firehose. I came to seminary thirsty, and I’ll leave soaked. And still thirsty.

I want to bring it all together, to have somewhere to go from here, but there’s always more to question, more to understand.

Sensing my distress, my professor backed away from the bookshelf and sat across from me. He challenged me to consider what it means to be faithful. It’s not a matter of figuring it all out, seeing how it all fits together, having all the questions answered. It’s a matter of taking a next step, of serving the Lord where I am, of trusting him that there’s a place for me even if I can’t see it right now.

It’s a matter of embracing my smallness. Of recognizing I can only do what’s before me, and beyond that isn’t really my business.

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The dolphins are gone now, and the sun glistens off the waves. My kids are in the water, their giggles rise above the soothing hum of beach noises – wind and waves, birds and laughter. I breathe in the ocean air, hold, exhale. I feel my shoulders relax, my jaw unclench, my heart lighten.

“Come into the water, Mom!”

I’m so tired. Tired of juggling deadlines and desires, my children’s emotions along with my own. I’m tired of interruptions, of uncertainty and unsettledness. I’m tired of wondering where I fit, or what the future holds. I’m tired of holding my breath, waiting for the next wave to knock me off my feet, knowing it can come at any second.

But there is peace in remembering I’m small.

When I remember I’m small, I see there is far more at play than this moment. I look to the horizon, trusting that these struggles really are just small and momentary. Eternal glory awaits. There is an ocean before me, and it still recognizes the voice that spoke it into existence.

And when I remember I’m small, I also see this moment is all that’s entrusted to me. I might know the ending, but I don’t know tomorrow, and tomorrow has enough worry of its own anyway. So I remember that the one who commands the waves is the one in whom all things hold together. The one who holds me together.

I brace myself; the water is cold. This ocean is huge but this moment is small, so I let my children grab my hands, dragging me further out, our teeth jittering. The waves come, bigger and bigger, but we forget to be afraid. Salt water catches our lips as we throw back our heads and laugh.