Wednesday, August 23, 2017

4 Reminders from the Total Eclipse


I may have originally downplayed it, but once the eclipse happened on August 21st I think I realized how significant the event really was. It got cooler. It became nighttime for a few minutes in the middle of the day. Crickets chirped and animals responded and then there was the corona – there are no words! We were looking straight into the direction of the sun for two and a half minutes. I have never seen anything like that before. What’s more is that it happened in my backyard while my daughter was celebrating her 10th birthday. It was a day to remember forever.

Here are 4 things that keep going through my head about “The Great American Eclipse”:

1. “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4). I don’t know about you, but I felt very insignificant and small as I considered my place in the universe. The expanses of the heavens lie beyond human understanding and we cannot reach or see their beginning and end. And yet God spoke them into existence with the words of His mouth in a mere moment. I am nothing. The same God who made the cosmos and all that exists in the material universe took on flesh and came to earth and died for me.

2. “All flesh is grass, and all of its loveliness is like the flower of the field” (Isaiah 40:6). Our earthly life is temporary. While the ages roll on generations come and go from the earth. I read that 1918 was the last time such an eclipse travelled across the continental United States. The adults that witnessed that have now passed on to eternity. Supposedly it has been hundreds of years since the last time that eclipse happened in my backyard. It was no backyard then, but was seen only by the forest and any animal or bird that happened to notice. While our life blooms like a flower and then fades away, God’s creative work continues.

3. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). For a moment all human beings were equal. The color of our skin did not matter. Our political views, social status, cultural background – all the things that separate us – for a few minutes they ceased to exist. I was not only mindful of the equality of humanity in the world today, but the equality of humanity for all time.  I thought about how thousands of years ago there were people living on this planet who saw the same moon that I saw block the same sun. I felt closer to mankind for a moment. I felt the way I am supposed to feel about humanity all the time.

4. “Look to the heavens and see; And behold the clouds—They are higher than you” (Job 35:5). This earth is fraught with problems. We are preoccupied with them. Life is a series of joys and exaltations, struggles and disappointments. There are good times and bad times and we are in a rat race and we have forgotten the things that really matter. We don’t look up enough. We do not appreciate the stars. We have a God that is far above the clouds, whose ways and thoughts are higher than ours. There is strength in looking upward. There is peace in knowing that beyond the sun and moon there is a God who is incontrol, who loves us and who has saved us. We need to look up more. If we want to see awe and majesty and divine splendor we don’t have to wait for an eclipse day to do that. We can see it every day.

A Day is coming when we will all look up. But on that Day, nothing will block out the Son. Maranatha!