Excerpt from "Through Painted Deserts" part 2

Because Black Butte is at four thousand feet, and because there isn't a city for twenty miles, the stars at night feel as though they are falling into the meadow. At midnight it feels there is more light in the sky than darkness, as though God took a fistful of stardust and threw it upward where it shimmers at the apex of its ascent, as though what we know as creation exists only for this brief second before it all comes crashing down again. Brilliant blue clusters spread thick and dense and they sparkle and fade, sparkle and fade. It is silent music, the night sky. God does well to live atop them. And I wonder, as I lie in the meadow with a piece of grass between my teeth, if angels look down upon the sky to which we look up? And I wonder at all the other creation that must be out there, in some other dimension, in some other compartment of God's imagination. I wonder how much more of it there is out there, or anywhere, or nowhere. Scientists have always baffled about all of this something having to have come from nothing, and I wonder what kinds of worlds the nothingness must inhabit. I wonder at what Paul said back in Portland, how God is good, how it doesn't do any good to run from Him because what He has is good and who He is, is good. Even if I want to run, it isn't really what I want--what I want is Him, even if I don't believe it. If He made all this existence, you would think He would know what He is doing, and you would think He could be trusted. Everything I want is just Him, to get lost in Him, to feel His love and more and more of this dazzling that He does. I wonder at His beautiful system and how it feels better than anything I could choose or invent for myself. I wonder as I gaze up at the night sky, this love letter from God to creation, this reminder that somewhere there is peace, somewhere there is order, and I think about how great His kingdom is, and is going to be, and I wonder, in this rare and beautiful moment, how I could ever want to walk away from it all. There are so many stars I will dream of them. I open my eyes and see stars, then close them and see stars. In the morning the sun will rise, the flowers will bloom in the spring, squirrels will perform acrobatic jumps from treetops to treetops, babies will gurgle, and I consider how delightful everything is. I remember as well what Paul had said in the canyon, about how what we used to want was cars and money and stuff and then all we wanted was a bowl of cereal, and I actually laugh out loud about it because right now we're here. I have absolutely nothing. I have no money and no home and nothing but a pair of shoes and a sleeping bag, and I am finally seeing how good life is, how beautiful it is. I star realizing that this is the first time I have encountered beauty in nature. I've read poems that have made my heart race. I've read scenes in novels that have caused me to close the book, set my head in my hands, and wonder how a human could so brilliantly orchestrate words. But nature has never inspired me until now. God is an artist, I think to myself. I have known this for a long time, seeing His brushwork in the sunrise and sunset, and His sculpting in the mountains and the rivers. But the night sky is His greatest work. And I would have never known it if I has stayed in Houston. I would have bought a little condo and filled it with Ikea trinkets and dates some girl just because she was hot and would have read self-help books, end to end, one after another, trying to fix the gaping hole in the bottom of my soul, the hole that, right now, seems plugged with Orion, allowing my soul to collect that feeling of belonging and love you only get when you stop long enough to engage the obvious.

(From pages 125 to 127 of "Through Painted Deserts" by Donald Miller.)