My dad was always fond of saying that nothing was ever as over as Christmas. By that he obviously meant the celebration of Christmas. His point was that usually weeks (and sometimes even months) went into planning for a week’s worth of activities. And then along came the day after Christmas wherein people quickly put away their decorations and reminders of this one special day, reflecting the fact that they now had an entirely different set of priorities.
I discovered earlier this week that that this principle can also apply to other special days. For instance, it now seems evident that few things are ever as over as an eclipse as well! After months of planning (and in some cases, years), the big moment came, was celebrated by millions, and then passed, all but forgotten, into oblivion. Society, it seems, now has other agendas.
And yet, the recent eclipse certainly left an impression on me! When the moon completely blocked out the sun, in a brief two minutes known as totality, I was amazed to see that lots of planets and other heavenly bodies were present up in the darkness of the sky. Apparently, they had been there all along; only now, without the overpowering brightness of the son, they were suddenly visible to the naked eye.
Obviously, I had known the nighttime sky was full of stars, planets, and the like. But somehow, I had failed to consider that the daytime sky is also just as full of heavenly bodies!
I once read that, assuming human eyes could see that far out, if someone was to hold out a dime at arm's length, then the coin would block out 15 million stars from his or her view! That is how full the heavens are! In every single direction that we look, there are millions upon millions of stars!
Our sun, with its attendant solar system, is apparently only one such star. Imagine, therefore, just how many total heavenly bodies there must be! Billions and billions of stars, surrounded by tens of billions of planets, and scores of billions of moons around them! Not to mention, comets, asteroids, and the like. And as staggering as these numbers are, they are still only minimal assumptions! There could be many, many, many more such heavenly bodies.
Now, here is what is truly mindboggling! Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language, only used 33,000 words. 400 years later, the average vocabulary of a modern college educated human might rarely range as high as perhaps 80,000 total words. Indeed, the entire English language only has about 750,000 words.
And yet, the Holy Bible (in the Old Testament Book of Psalms, chapter 147, verse 4) tells us that our God “determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name”. Apparently, therefore, God’s own vocabulary contains untold billions, if not trillions, of words. Little wonder, then, that the same Bible (in Psalm 19, verses 1-4) also declares:
1The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
The heavens were certainly speaking to me this past Monday afternoon! And what they were saying was something like this:
“Consider just how vast we are! And then ponder the majesty of the One Who created us! For He is also the One Who created you. And He made you in His image! And more than this, when you found yourself separated from him by the rebellion of sin, He gave His Son to redeem you in order that you might be restored to a proper relationship with Him! And now, you too have been given a new name – that of Christian. And that name entitles you to an eternity of happiness with Him. Now, that is truly a great God!”
You may quickly forget the great total solar eclipse of 2017. We all may. But I hope none of us will ever forget the awesome power of God on display in nature. Nor the declaration of His majesty by His creation!
VOCABULARY INFORMATION SOURCE:
http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073123587/student_view0/chapter3/ho
w_much_do_you_know_about_vocabulary_.html. Sadly, this article reveals that our average vocabulary size is now decreasing, owing largely to the fact that we increasingly live in a pictographic society in which reading is fast becoming a lost art.
SCRIPTURE SOURCES:
http://biblehub.com/psalms/147-4.htm and
http://biblehub.com/niv/psalms/19.htm.
I discovered earlier this week that that this principle can also apply to other special days. For instance, it now seems evident that few things are ever as over as an eclipse as well! After months of planning (and in some cases, years), the big moment came, was celebrated by millions, and then passed, all but forgotten, into oblivion. Society, it seems, now has other agendas.
And yet, the recent eclipse certainly left an impression on me! When the moon completely blocked out the sun, in a brief two minutes known as totality, I was amazed to see that lots of planets and other heavenly bodies were present up in the darkness of the sky. Apparently, they had been there all along; only now, without the overpowering brightness of the son, they were suddenly visible to the naked eye.
Obviously, I had known the nighttime sky was full of stars, planets, and the like. But somehow, I had failed to consider that the daytime sky is also just as full of heavenly bodies!
I once read that, assuming human eyes could see that far out, if someone was to hold out a dime at arm's length, then the coin would block out 15 million stars from his or her view! That is how full the heavens are! In every single direction that we look, there are millions upon millions of stars!
Our sun, with its attendant solar system, is apparently only one such star. Imagine, therefore, just how many total heavenly bodies there must be! Billions and billions of stars, surrounded by tens of billions of planets, and scores of billions of moons around them! Not to mention, comets, asteroids, and the like. And as staggering as these numbers are, they are still only minimal assumptions! There could be many, many, many more such heavenly bodies.
Now, here is what is truly mindboggling! Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language, only used 33,000 words. 400 years later, the average vocabulary of a modern college educated human might rarely range as high as perhaps 80,000 total words. Indeed, the entire English language only has about 750,000 words.
And yet, the Holy Bible (in the Old Testament Book of Psalms, chapter 147, verse 4) tells us that our God “determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name”. Apparently, therefore, God’s own vocabulary contains untold billions, if not trillions, of words. Little wonder, then, that the same Bible (in Psalm 19, verses 1-4) also declares:
1The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
The heavens were certainly speaking to me this past Monday afternoon! And what they were saying was something like this:
“Consider just how vast we are! And then ponder the majesty of the One Who created us! For He is also the One Who created you. And He made you in His image! And more than this, when you found yourself separated from him by the rebellion of sin, He gave His Son to redeem you in order that you might be restored to a proper relationship with Him! And now, you too have been given a new name – that of Christian. And that name entitles you to an eternity of happiness with Him. Now, that is truly a great God!”
You may quickly forget the great total solar eclipse of 2017. We all may. But I hope none of us will ever forget the awesome power of God on display in nature. Nor the declaration of His majesty by His creation!
VOCABULARY INFORMATION SOURCE:
http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073123587/student_view0/chapter3/ho
w_much_do_you_know_about_vocabulary_.html. Sadly, this article reveals that our average vocabulary size is now decreasing, owing largely to the fact that we increasingly live in a pictographic society in which reading is fast becoming a lost art.
SCRIPTURE SOURCES:
http://biblehub.com/psalms/147-4.htm and
http://biblehub.com/niv/psalms/19.htm.