"This song means something different now."

Back when I was in college and part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of my favorite songs we used to sing was "Cover the Earth."

I'm pretty sure it comes from Isaiah 11:9 (or Habakkuk 2:14, which is similar), "... for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

One summer, I went on a missions trip to China. And wow, you guys. It was like nothing I had ever imagined. It was so different from everything I had ever experienced in America. (Yeah that's how China ruined my life.)

And God was there.

When I came back, we sang that song at one of our InterVarsity meetings. And wow. I said to one of my friends, "This song has a different meaning to me now that I've been to China."

Before, I had no idea about what "the earth" really was. All I knew was the United States.

Wow.

It was always easy to throw around words like "everyone" and "the whole world", without realizing what you're actually talking about. So much diversity in the world, so many languages and cultures and different ways of doing things, so many fruits and vegetables I've never even heard of, so many little jokes and puns in every language, and I'll never know half of it. The world is so big and so different, it's mind-boggling (and you guys, I've only been to China. What if I went to like, other foreign countries too? I think that would be way too mind-blowing for me to handle.)

But God is there! God is everywhere, and when we talk about his glory being shown in the whole earth, and all people seeing it, wow that is a BIG THING we're saying.

Same idea with Psalm 96. It means something different to me now, now that I know about China. All those mentions of "the nations" and how God's greatness will be proclaimed there- wow. Wow.

God lives. He is alive and active in every culture in the world, in ways I could never understand because I only speak English and Mandarin.

God is the God of the whole earth. And that is saying something.

Open the heavens, O Lord. Pour out your spirit.

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