Perhaps due to my love for history, I have always been fascinated with the concept of marking time through calendars and dates. Little tidbits like the following come my way ever so often and simply fascinate me. I thought it appropriate to post the following bits of trivia for the first week of July.
As you can see from any calendar page, this year, July 2011, will be unique in our lifetime. It has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays. This only happens once every 823 years. Thus, no one alive now has ever seen this before; nor will anyone alive today ever see this again in his or her lifetime.
Interesting, to say the least. But there is more! This year, 2011, we are going to experience four unusual dates: 1/1/11; 1/11/11; 11/1/11; 11/11/11. This will not happen again for 100 years.
And that's not all... Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born. Now add the age you will be this year. The results will be 111 for everyone in whole world. All of this sort of makes July, 2011 a little unique; does it not?
I am reminded in all of this that God delights in doing unique things. Yes, July, 2011 is unique on the calendar. But so are you. As am I. Indeed, we are all unique in God’s eyes. Not on the calendar, but as human beings. There never has been, and never will be, another you. Nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be again, another me.
Each of us is uniquely created by our God in His image. We are each much more than “one in a million”. Indeed, counting all the people who have ever lived, and who are alive right now, we are closer to “one in twelve billion”! And as such, we each have unique value to God.
I love the stories that Jesus tells in chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke. There are three of them; and, in turn, they record the value of a single lost sheep, a single lost coin, and a single lost son. In each case, the shepherd, the owner, and the father respectively go to great extremes to seek out and find that which had been so treasured to them, but had then been lost. Once that which was valued had been retrieved, there was great rejoicing.
This reminds me that each one of us has value to God. We might expect that a father would seek out one of two sons who was lost. Or that a woman might turn her house upside down looking for one lost coin in ten. But here, a shepherd left 99 who were all safe to seek only one which was lost. The point is that the value of that which was lost did not decrease proportionately. One in a hundred has the same value as one in ten or one in two. So does one in twelve billion!
This tells me that God cares for each of us individually - so much so that, had you or I either one have been the only person who ever lived and the only one who was then lost, God would have still given His Son to retrieve us from our fallen condition. How’s that for value?!
As you can see from any calendar page, this year, July 2011, will be unique in our lifetime. It has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays. This only happens once every 823 years. Thus, no one alive now has ever seen this before; nor will anyone alive today ever see this again in his or her lifetime.
Interesting, to say the least. But there is more! This year, 2011, we are going to experience four unusual dates: 1/1/11; 1/11/11; 11/1/11; 11/11/11. This will not happen again for 100 years.
And that's not all... Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born. Now add the age you will be this year. The results will be 111 for everyone in whole world. All of this sort of makes July, 2011 a little unique; does it not?
I am reminded in all of this that God delights in doing unique things. Yes, July, 2011 is unique on the calendar. But so are you. As am I. Indeed, we are all unique in God’s eyes. Not on the calendar, but as human beings. There never has been, and never will be, another you. Nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be again, another me.
Each of us is uniquely created by our God in His image. We are each much more than “one in a million”. Indeed, counting all the people who have ever lived, and who are alive right now, we are closer to “one in twelve billion”! And as such, we each have unique value to God.
I love the stories that Jesus tells in chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke. There are three of them; and, in turn, they record the value of a single lost sheep, a single lost coin, and a single lost son. In each case, the shepherd, the owner, and the father respectively go to great extremes to seek out and find that which had been so treasured to them, but had then been lost. Once that which was valued had been retrieved, there was great rejoicing.
This reminds me that each one of us has value to God. We might expect that a father would seek out one of two sons who was lost. Or that a woman might turn her house upside down looking for one lost coin in ten. But here, a shepherd left 99 who were all safe to seek only one which was lost. The point is that the value of that which was lost did not decrease proportionately. One in a hundred has the same value as one in ten or one in two. So does one in twelve billion!
This tells me that God cares for each of us individually - so much so that, had you or I either one have been the only person who ever lived and the only one who was then lost, God would have still given His Son to retrieve us from our fallen condition. How’s that for value?!