“…oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!
All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything.” Ephesians 1:19-22a (The Message)
We sat on the grass watching the sun slowly set over the mountains. The sky had those brilliant outlines of orange against the clouds. The sun’s brightness radiated… a big glowing ball as it settled behind the horizon. It’s nice to have a front row seat to these Colorado evening spectacles. As we walked home, we chatted with neighbors who were taking in the same sight.
When we got home, I grabbed a book to update myself on some of our sun’s amazingly powerful characteristics. So here’s what I read first – “Our sun is rated a star of only the fifth magnitude. It shines with a mild, yellow light and is 100,000 times less luminous than its brightest neighbor.” WHAT?! Are you talking about the same sun that’s burning up patches of my lawn?
But I kept on reading and soon was swimming in a sea of big facts. Our sun is 864,000 miles in diameter. It consists of some 335 quadrillion cubic miles of violent hot gases. It weighs more than 2 octillion tons. (How do you write out an octillion!?) And while we orbit around the sun once a year, the sun orbits around the center of our galaxy (the Milky Way) once every 200 million years! (Who’s counting this stuff!?)
Here’s another quick fact. The Milky Way contains 100 billion orbiting stars, just like our sun. That’s hard to wrap my mind around. One last mind boggler – Edwin Hubble, the astronomer, calculates that there are as many galaxies outside the Milky Way as there are stars in it.
Take another look at today’s verses. Just think and ponder… our savior, Jesus, was raised from the dead with and by a power that’s greater than all this. He rules with that power over all things – from “galaxies to governments”. And guess what… He lives within us, going with us wherever we may go. That very same power is available to help us daily in whatever we face.
Next time you feel overwhelmed, take some time out to view a sunset… and keep Ephesians 1 nearby just in case you need to get perspective.
By Dan Elliott
