I have never thought as long about any blog post as I have about this one. It’s been months, and I still feel like I’m not ready to write it. There may be multiple parts to follow.
It’s something I’m learning which applies to every aspect of our lives.
It’s the art of zooming out.
How the heck do I describe it?
Last night I was playing frisbee at a park in Denver as the pink sun set behind the Rocky Mountains. It was a beautiful night: Just cool enough to run around shirtless and not overheat. The game was great; the teams were split evenly and we went back and forth on the scoreboard for a while, until my team made a number of blunders and the other team shot several points ahead of us.
I started to get upset.
Then, I went to block this one dude’s pass and was successful. Unfortunately, he was whipping it across the entire field and I was point blank in front of him, catching the frisbee directly in the wrist. It hurt. A lot. I couldn’t use my right hand for several minutes. It’s still swollen.
I began to get angry.
I stopped running for the disc and just walked, while the other players ran all around me. After a few minutes of moping, I started to tell myself,
zoom out.
I wasn’t mad because we were down a couple points and I had made a (beautiful) block and hurt my wrist. I wasn’t mad at my teammate’s blunders, or even my own for that matter.
I was upset because my car broke down a few days ago and I’m deep in debt. I was upset because I’m not a huge fan of my new job (even though no job is good in the first week), and because the kids in my youth group are little termites whom I want to set on fire, and have really been testing my patience and wearing me down the past few weeks.
I was upset because I just want to hold someone’s hand. It’s been over five years since I’ve had one to grasp and the thundering pain of loneliness has been shivering up and down my spine lately. More so since I passed the midpoint of my twenties almost a year ago. I was upset because I’m battling my necessary millennial quarter-life crisis and the existential pangs of God’s silence has been wearing heavier than usual on me lately.
That’s why I was upset.
See what happened there? I zoomed out.
Suddenly I wasn’t as upset about the score of the game or my throbbing wrist. Suddenly a lot of smaller things got out of the way and made room for bigger things to occupy my thoughts.
I think this applies to every area of life. Everything that makes up your whole, entire life should be zoomed out. Your bank account, your anger and sadness, your addictions and vices. Your entertainment and friend group.
Zoom out.
Because if you zoom out far enough, you always get to God.