Of the strawberry moon. It's 4:00am. Only got 2 hours of sleep. The night is beautiful. The temperature is cool. The dawn is still breaking. The stars twinkle faintly in the pale light amongst dark clouds that lie low on the horizon. There's a full moon. It's large & luminous, setting slowly. There are cool shadows being cast by her radiance in the misty light. The swollen river roars in the distance. All is calm. A company of crickets sing their song in the field. A dog barks. I'm looking out my window, waiting for a lunar eclipse. If I'm fortunate, I'll see the anomaly, take a picture, then return to bed for a couple more hour's of shut eye.
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| (edit: Somehow I missed the eclipse & got up for nothing. This pic is from one I saw last year.) |
Whenever I look up at the heavens & see those innumerable twinkling stars, I'm reminded that they are the works of HIS fingers, & not one of them is missing. HE set them all in place & calls them all by name. Through faith in Christ, I'm one of those stars; I am a descendent of Abraham. (Genesis 15:4, Psalm 8, Isaiah 40:26, Galatians 3:7-9) The stars are so amazing, it's hard to fathom how far away they are, the concept of space & how short a time we have here on earth. We need to be wise with the time given to us.
Here's s bit from John Piper's Desiring God
In “The Simple Life”, Vernard Eller delights himself in some of the great parables of SØren Kierkegaard. One of his favorites is the parable of the lighted carriage and the starlit night. We could also call it the crisis of Christian Hedonism. It goes like this:
“When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then he is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him, and it is not dark close around him. But precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason, he cannot see the stars. For his lights obscure the stars, which the poor peasant, driving without lights, can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones live in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in their prosperity and good days they have, as it were, lanterns lighted, and close about them everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable — but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars.”
Piper summarizes:
Eller comments, “Clearly, ‘the view of the stars’ here intends one’s awareness and enjoyment of God.” The rich and busy who surround themselves with the carriage lights of temporal comfort, or the busy who cover themselves with troublesome care, cut themselves off from what Kierkegaard calls “the absolute joy”: What indescribable joy! — joy over God the Almighty… for this is the absoulute joy, to adore the almighty power with which God the Almightly bears all thy care and sorrow as easily as nothing.
Wow. Think that over. We shouldn't hide under baskets, we should shine bright as stars in the dark of night. It's very profound. The world is sacramental, as is everything in it. When understood, this results in mediated grace for everyone who is responding to God in true faith. God grants immediate grace in various ways... This immediate grace should be radiant grace, that spreads everywhere, & gets into everything. True faith can find it in anything- keep the wonder, look all around you, what do you see? All too often, we get distracted & shut it out. The grandeur of God can come from anything; shining stars, the shrill chirr of crickets, doing house work, shoveling rock etc. We all need to have radiant grace, that spreads out through everything, affecting everything else, & causing everything else to become a mirror that reflects the glory of God.
-GB
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