A Window in Cleveland

I wasn’t planning to be in Cleveland that night. Work had brought me there: one of those unexpected trips that come with the life I live, where pastoring and the trades overlap more often than people realize. I finished the day late, grabbed a quick dinner, and found myself wide awake near midnight in a hotel far from home.

It was raining. The kind of rain that hushes a city and makes everything feel softer than it should.

I took the elevator to the top floor and walked down a long hallway to a window overlooking downtown. No one was out walking. Very few cars moved through the streets. But the buildings were full of light: hundreds of windows glowing even at that hour.

And standing there, I felt something I didn’t expect.

It wasn’t awe. It wasn’t loneliness. It wasn’t even curiosity.

It was the sense that I was being allowed, just for a moment, to see the city the way God sees it: not in detail, not in omniscience, but in posture.

I didn’t know who was behind those windows. I didn’t know their stories, their fears, their hopes, their failures, or their prayers. But He did.

Every window represented a life. Every life represented a story. Every story was known to Him with perfect clarity.

And in that quiet moment, I felt something like an invisible staff placed in my hand: not a call to oversee a city, not a call to know what God knows, but a reminder of what shepherding actually is.

I realized I’m not called to carry what He carries. I’m not called to reach everyone. I’m not called to see every window.

I’m simply called to tend the ones He sends to me.

Not the whole city. Not the whole world. Just the people He places in front of me:

one conversation, one Sunday, one story at a time.

Standing at that window, I felt the weight of that truth and the relief of it. Pastoring isn’t about knowing everything. It’s not about seeing everything. It’s not about reaching everyone.

It’s about being faithful with the few.

The city lights reminded me of something simple and freeing:

God sees every window. I’m just asked to see the ones right in front of me.

And that is enough.