There has been a full lunar eclipse tonight. A lot of nights when something cool like this happens, we have cloud cover and we are unable to see it. Not tonight… the sky was clear, so the eclipse was easily visible along with a myriad of stars and constellations.
A night like tonight always brings me back to Psalm 19.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19:1-4 NIV
On the news they said at 11:12 pm the lunar eclipse would peak…and guess what…exactly at 11:12 pm it did! I find it amazing that the scientist, and apparently anyone who has a mathematical bent can pinpoint the date and time of eclipses.
God controls all that is in the heavens. And the fact that eclipses can be tracked down to the exact minute (that blows my mind) shows how exacting He has been with His creation. He did not just randomly toss stars across the galaxies but carefully placed all so that we would have order in the heavenlies and within our lives.
Albert Einstein understood God’s design when said, “God does not play dice with the universe.” This was his way of acknowledging that reality follows reliable universal laws, not random chance.
The sun, moon and stars follow the patterns God created. Mankind has looked to the stars for millenniums for navigating and tracking time. It has been reliable, orderly because God is reliable and orderly.
Since God is a God of order…a God of peace it seems strange that our world is so filled with conflict and chaos. What happened? Our world is not peaceful, and when you look at the news it seems very chaotic…why?
It is mankind that has created the pain, stress, and chaos. God gave mankind the ability to follow Him and His laws but we as humans think we know better. It’s that freewill you always hear about. We have been given the freedom of choice.
God in His love and kindness knew that we are stubborn and likely to sin, so He sent a remedy for that.
BTW, the Greek word for sin means “miss the mark”…like an arrow that is shot and it misses its target. Our target is to draw close to God…to follow His laws.
And let me tell you, I often miss that mark! But God gave us the remedy for this poor aim, He sent Jesus to die for us…yes, His dying is the remedy! Because when we miss the mark and choose to go our own ways, we will not be able to spend eternity with God. And that is our target. (Eternity without God will be hell.)
Jesus picked up all the stray arrows and took on the penalty of our sin onto Himself. I can not imagine the pain that caused Him. He is God and could have stayed in heaven leaving us to our own wayward lives. BUT God wanted the relationship with us so greatly that Jesus took on all the penalty. He made it easy. All we need to do is believe in Him as our savior.
And that my dear friends brings me back to the amazing God…a God of order so much so that He created a remedy for us to be with Him when we miss the mark!
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” John 3:16-17 NIV
“And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.” Genesis 1:14
“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” I Corinthians 14:33a