Twinkle, Twinkle ...

We have all heard that nursery rhyme, that one that goes, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…” And those of us who have kids have most likely repeated it to them. Did you ever stop and realize that this is the first astronomy lesson? It’s true. Remember that stars twinkle and planets do not because they are reflecting the light from the sun. the same as the moon’s light is a reflection of sun light. I am writing this in Dallas, Texas and it is mid-November. Once the sun has set and it is dark, there are these planets visible without a telescope: Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. Venus is a mere 25 million miles away from us, Jupiter 360 million miles, and Saturn 800 million miles from Earth. Now think about this: the distance from the sun to Saturn and back to Earth is only 1.7 billion miles. And yet we ca still see it unaided. It takes a total of two hours, 22 minutes for the light to make that journey! That is how bright our sun is. 

God created the planets, stars, and other things that are out there … and he is still doing it. The age of the universe is about 10 billion years old, but new stars and planets are being born and old ones die. Maybe this is how the supreme being has fun. And they are all different sizes. There is a red dwarf star that is 1/7th the size of our sun. The largest known star is UY Scuti. It is so large that you could take our solar system almost to Saturn, just about a 100 million miles less than its distance from the sun, and put it inside UY Scuti. It has a radius of 738 million miles. And God created both, the dwarf and the largest. 

Some night walk out and away from surrounding lights and look up and reflect on the wonder and glory of all of the stars and planets you can see unaided. There are about 5,000 stars visible. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 400 billion stars, and there are about 170 million galaxies … and God created all of it, and is still doing so. 

The next time you read about creation in the bible, that God created the heavens and the earth, try to wrap your head around just how enormous is all you can see and can’t see and stand there in total awe of God and all he has created, far beyond the limits of what we can imagine. It the words of that old hymn, “Out God is an awesome God.” Truly he is.

The Silence

 Silence: the opposite of sound, or the lack of it. Silence is present in word and action throughout our lives, in song and entertainment and life. We hear that “Silence is golden” and songs like “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel from 1967, the movie “Silence of the Lambs”, a cliché tells us the silence was deafening. Then there are people who live in silence. I’m not talking about dead people here. In the Catholic Church, the Trappist Monks live in silence and prayer and contemplation of God.

We have all, at one time or another, experienced God’s silence. We know that when we pray to God, whether in praise or the request something, he hears us. It is a tenet of our faith that God answers all of our prayers, sometimes with a “yes” and sometimes with a “no”. But how about all of the other times when all we get from God in answer to our prayers is … nothing. Silence. We pray, we make offerings, sometimes we try to make a deal with him. And more nothing, more silence.

 I wrote a piece a few years back titled “God’s Good Time”. And that is sometimes how it is when we pray. We just aren’t ready for the answer yet.

Maybe sometimes God has a different motive for being silent. Think back to the story of Job in the Old Testament. He lost it all: family, crops, animals, buildings, health. Three of his friends insisted he must have done something really wrong to make God so angry that he visited all of these things on Job. We know that the purpose was to show Satan that Job’s faith was strong, that regardless of what befell him, he did not break faith with God. Surely, Job wondered why God was silent, not answering his prayers for relief and deliverance. In the end, Job was richly rewarded by God for his unwavering faith. 

How about us? Do you think that maybe God is giving us an opportunity to show our faith? It would certainly be easy to turn our back on God when we aren’t getting any response from him. Some may even go to the point of questioning God’s very existence. There is another cliché, “Keep the faith, baby”. That is what it is all about, staying faithful regardless of what happens to us, in that silence period. And when it is done, when God responds once again, what has happened to your faith? It has gotten stronger. You have added to the strength of your faith and are more able to resist the attacks of the Enemy. Remember, that in order for a muscle to get stronger, it must be damaged first and the healing gives it strength. The point where a bone breaks is stronger there after it heals than the rest of the bone. So, it is with our faith in that when we have come through a period of trial, our faith is even stronger than before. 

So, why does God do these things or allow them to happen? It could be that we need to discover just how strong we really are. Perhaps God knows we are going to come to a period of trial that tests our faith, and he is preparing us by making us stronger. 

How about you? Is God answering your prayers? If so, great. Are you experiencing God’s gift of silence? Also great! We may see his purpose then or it may be off in our future. It is a gift and you have the chance to use it wisely. So just accept it, just do it.