'The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal' (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Last night, the sky was clear - not a cloud to be had, no mist, no rain, no moon. The stars were incredibly bright and I could see thousands of them. I thought of what I learnt in science at school - we can only see a fraction of the millions we cannot. It made me think back to a time when, a few years ago, I stood in the middle of a deserted road late at night, in the middle of the Australian Outback and gazed up into the sky. The brightness of the stars beamed out of the eerily black sky. I couldn't see my hand in front of me, or my friend who stood right next to me. I was filled with awe - to a point where words failed me - the majesty and awesomeness of out Creator God.
I thought last night, as I did that night, of the Bible verse in Psalm chapter 8 verses 3 & 4:
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
human beings that you care for them?
*emphasis mine
When that astronaut completed the first orbit of the earth in 1961 he was awarded many honours and made lecture tours throughout his native land. On one of these occasions, when thousands had come to hear him, he ridiculed the existence of God. He said he looked up and down, north, east, south and west, but could not see God anywhere.
Many laughed at this audacious talk. Suddenly a believer from the back of the hall shouted out, "If you had fallen out, you would have met Him!"
For a moment there was a shocked complete silence and then, as though at a given silence, all the Christians in the audience sang, what was to them a well-known song:
Oh Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hand hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy pow'r throughout the universe displayed;
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
The audience dispersed. They had been given something to think about.
...In the vastness of the Universe - who are they - one mere small fraction of a dot in the grand scheme of everything.
...Who is God to them - their Creator who made and loves them? Or a figment of millions of people's imagination?
...Where will they spend eternity - in the blissful joy of Heaven, or the fire of Hell, where suffering and torment are endless? The wonderful thing is - people can choose where their soul will go when their earthly shell departs this earth. There will come a time, however, where the choice will be no longer available; God will have had enough of waiting and watching people destroy their lives and the lives of others. The world will become such an awful place to live, God will have to step in and say "Enough is enough".
We are living in a deteriorating world - morally and ethically, that seems to be happening at an increasingly rapid rate.
It is sad and yet amazing to watch people live their lives - they have no concept of eternity - they live for today, here and now; yet fail to see that 'today' is a fraction of a dot on the spectrum of eternity.
Consider Him - He who is 'great... and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.' ~Psalm 145 verse 3
