Time & Space Explained in 495 Words

The world seemed to get bigger and smaller at the same time when I moved to South Africa in 2010. Oceans made my family feel impossibly far. I felt like a foreigner wherever I was as I maneuvered languages, cuisines, time zones and currencies.

While I learned to convert the horizontal expanse from miles into kilometers, something changed vertically. Heaven got closer to earth as I got further from my own understanding of the world. Every tribal tongue, Chik-fil-A lover, traveling missionary, hard-working mom, and vulnerable child needs the same hope. Heaven creeps closer to earth with every prayer uttered and every tear shed - wherever it falls. Jesus is the same in the silent, starry skies of rural Africa as He is amongst the bustling skyscrapers of the American cities I once traversed. 

Last Saturday, Southpoint Church hosted a workshop called He Speaks. The teachers called us in Cape Town on Zoom from Atlanta, Georgia and faciliated a training for people to learn to hear God’s voice. My stomach did a nervous flip when the sreens flickered on and I introduced our workshop faciliatators. Would this be impersonal? Was this a huge mistake? Aren’t people tired of watching screens? 

We had a webcam set up so the teachers from Atlanta could see a portion of the participants in the room. I would run around with a microphone so they could interact with their audience. They facilitated exercises in hearing God’s voice that involved participants interacting with them and each other. 

They were on the other side of the world! They were drinking morning coffee. We were getting hungry for dinner. Yet all the miles, kilometers, fears and doubts were swallowed up in the presence of the King of Kings. 

I just got phone call from a woman who found my number just to tell me she had been forever changed by her experience there. She begged me to make sure the workshop facilitators knew what an impact they had made on her. I’m still speechless. 

When the vertical distance between heaven and earth disappears, all other measurements and distinguishers do too. The 13-year olds, grandparents, hopeful, broken, lonely, lost and leaders - no one untouched. 

Last week, I told Chris several times I felt like I had reached my personal ceiling. I was maxed out on potential and capacity. I wanted to do more and be more, but I felt extremely limited at the end of myself. It may sound stange, but because of my limitations, I feel refreshed this week. 

I don't have to bridge any gaps because Jesus did that on the cross. I don't have to be anything I'm not because God Is. I get to be small because He is not confined by continents, time zones, seasons of life, circumstances or my own shortcomings. Sometimes you just need to see the distance disappear to remember you don’t have to hold it all together. 

Chris having a good, public, ugly-cry as he shared how God had moved him during the workshop.