Today I turned 21, and the day brought with it quite a few awesome opportunities and experiences. We started the day off by visiting the location where John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. From here, we drove to the Dead Sea where we covered ourselves in mud from the water and then continued to float around on the salty water for part of the afternoon. Lunch was a buffet and for the first time this trip, they had a huge chocolate mousse cake as desert. After lunch we drove to a new camp ground for the night. Our tented village happens to be in the middle of a huge mountain valley. The only way to get to it is by a modified jeep which looks as if it was taken out of an Indiana Jones movie. Before dinner, we sprinted off into the rocks and Leah and I found a little nook where we were able to do some rock climbing which lead us to the top where we could see the sunset on the mountain ridges. After dinner, we came back outside and after resting in a Bedouin tent for a few minutes, we went back up to the rock ridge to watch the stars. I don’t know how I get so lucky that days like this happen to fall on my birthday, I was very grateful and in awe most of the day.

But the best part about today was that it got me thinking back to the summer one year ago. During my trip to Australia and Tanzania, I had a few songs that were continually stuck in my head, and wherever I went I ended up singing them to myself. As I was sitting on top of the white capped rocks blanketed by the stars above me, I started humming “Pure and Holy Passion” in my head. The one verse really caught me.

This world is empty, pale and poor
Compared to knowing you my Lord,
So lead me on and I will run after You
Lead me on and I will run after You.

So I started thinking about that line as I looked out over the hazy blackness. This world is empty, pale and poor. As we drive from site to site on this trip, we almost always have to drive through some type of desert or semi-arid landscape. The ground is dry and brown. An indecisive horizon blends from tan to blue all around me. The recent drought hasn’t helped, everything looks thirsty. These places that we are driving through are the exact places that the Israelites spent years wandering through in search of the promise land. I can see how they could have related to empty pale and poor. I wonder if I could have trusted God’s leading for forty years after being lead through such scourged regions.

As we were watching the stars tonight atop our rocky perch, we began thinking about the purpose of the stars. To think, that 3000 years ago there were people sitting most likely in the very place we were, staring up at the same sky, and wandering what it all meant. Here we are thousands of years later and doing the same thing. We were trying to determine the purpose of the stars. What made God decide to create these complex balls of gas light-years away from planet Earth?

The only thing I could think of was direction. God made the stars to lead his people. For thousands of years, stars have stayed in relatively the same position, and people over the years have used them for guidance and bearing. Do you think when God was creating stuff he thought, stars will be the easiest way to provide directions for these people. Or perhaps the complexity and intricateness of the stars is meant to show us that God’s leading doesn’t always tend to be simple or easy. Sometimes our paths that he leads us on are complex. And for me, when I see an easier solution (at least in my mind) I tend to lean towards that path. But I’ve been finding that God enjoys using complex paths to guide us. Sure there are times when the path is simple and easy to follow, but the majority of the time, the path is too hard to fully see. We sit and question why it has to be so intricate, just as I was thinking about the stars. If God wanted to, he could have just made a giant compass in the sky. That would have been easy.

But then there would have been no discovery. No awe. No questioning or learning.

As I climbed the side of one of the many rock formations scattered across the mountain valley and reached the top, I stood in awe for a few seconds over the view in front of me. It looked as if God had made those sand drip castles out of rock all over the ground. The mountain cliff emitted a soft red glow bouncing back from the setting sun. The birds took their final flights across the valley as they returned back to their nests for the night. A small beetle slowly maneuvered around some fallen debris, the rock side portraying a miniature Serengeti for him to explore. The bush to my side rustled as a lizard rearranged itself in the mess of thorns it beautifully produced. The rocks told a story. Their colored lines and shallow crevices told stories of the water, of their birth and of their growth. They sat in silence and talked to me. I wonder if 3000 years ago God painted the same picture from that rock cliff. What would have been different? What new awes would be laid out in front of me?

I’m finding that awe is a large part of God’s path, yet there are still times in my life that I forget to soak in the awe all around me. The last few weeks of school were a whirlwind to say the least. My projects and finals consumed most of me, and I slowly began to loose God’s awe in my work. People say I sometimes get lucky. I can’t really argue them. But I don’t think having all these things happen on my birthday was complete luck, sometimes God has important things to tell you and will therefore find ways to make his message known. Sometimes that message comes through awe-filled moments disguised as joyful moments. But sometimes the awe finds its place through tragic and unexpected moments. I’m still wrestling with this difference.

Yet what I have found out is that God talks to us continually. I believe that he wants to fill us with awe; this is why he created so many different and beautiful creations on the planet. I have had the privilege to see just a few of these places, and the common thread from every trip is the awe I’ve experienced. The challenge for me is how to discover the awe in my day to day routines. It’s there are looking back on my work I can see it. But it’s when you are in the moment and struggling over where God is working; those are the times when you desperately need to discover the awe.