by Erin Bair

I’m writing this from the air, as I fly to South Carolina to spend a few days with a friend and her family at the beach. The sky has moved from sunset through dusk and now to nighttime dark. The ground below us is dark as well, except for the snaking lines of interstates, clusters of small towns here and there, and the occasional constellation of a city. Somehow for me, flying at night is always a little more magical than daytime air travel; as the horizon fades into darkness, the line between earth and heaven seems to blur as well.

As I look out the plane window, I find myself praying. Somehow it seems like it should be a little easier to access God’s perspective from up here, as the conundrums of my daily life seem to shrink the farther up we climb. Surely this is something closer to God's view of me when he hears my prayers.

But then I remember: Jesus is Emmanuel, God-with-us. Not God-looking-down-at-us-from-30,000-feet. Not God-watching-us-from-a-distance. God with us.

Certainly an eternal, infinite God, a God who flung stars into space, has a perspective on our world and on my life that I will never have. And I’m unspeakably grateful for that, befuddled as I so often am by the world as I understand it—or don’t. But there’s also something profoundly comforting and hopeful to me in this reminder that God does not just look at my life from a distance. That God’s perspective on my life is every bit as much an on-the-ground one as a from-the-air one. That nothing is too small or messy or inconsequential for God’s notice or attention or care.

Maybe you’re in a moment in your life where you’re longing for a little 30,000-foot perspective on your life. If so, then I hope you can take heart in the fact that the God who sets the moon and the stars in space (Psalm 8:3) hears your prayers and will answer them. Or maybe you’re in a moment in your life where you need the reminder that you are not alone, even here on the ground. If so, then take comfort in the fact that Jesus really is God-with-us, his feet planted firmly on the earth alongside us.

But no matter what, we can find hope in this good news: that God is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27).

The Rev. Erin Bair is the Rector of St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Nokesville, VA.