I’m heading west-by-northwest: Kent, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois… to Minneapolis, Minnesota… to Jamestown, North Dakota… to New Salem, North Dakota… to Regent, North Dakota… to Hettinger, North Dakota… to Hot Springs, South Dakota… to Guernsey, Wyoming… to Estes Park, Colorado. It’s going to be a lot of driving, but I’m excited for the journey. Even the thought of this journey makes me feel kind of squiggly inside.

I regularly gush about the Great Plains, so I’m especially excited to have about 24 hours in the Western Dakotas. I’m not just saying that I like the Great Plains; I love the Great Plains. I think they’re really, really great! But why?!?

I think there are actually many reasons, but I had some time to think about it this week, and I believe that one of the things that I really love about the Great Plains is the way that they are so vast, so enormous, almost eternal. The Great Plains remind me of my smallness, my insignificance, and my inadequacy — and I actually find this deeply comforting. I can delude myself into believing that I’m pretty important, over the course of regular life in Northeast Ohio. I become self-important. When I’m really just a blade of grass on those great, Great Plains. I’m a low-profile leader of a relatively-small church in a relatively-obscure network. I’m a blogger with readership more meaningfully measured in the dozens than the hundreds, thousands, or millions. I’m a farmer of forty acres which feel like everything I can handle — and then some — most times.

Yet God still loves me. God still includes me in His family and His family business. And that’s pretty amazing. To have a chance to soak in that — and the campy roadside attractions and the buffalo and the antelope and the old-school diners and the Wild West vibes — is a gift, and I’m looking forward to unwrapping that present. Stay tuned for more gushing about the greatness of the Great Plains.