Postcard from the Past

Every now and then I get this wild streak in me and all I want to do is.......stargaze. Well, it may not sound that exciting, but I always see a satelite or two and even usually a falling star. Those are the same stars God created in the beginning. They are the same stars God showed to Abram. They are the same stars God called each by name. As I lay on the driveway gazing upward, I get a good perspective on how little I am in the universe!

Have you ever thought about how God uses the stars to mark certain events in our earthly history? There is the day to day, month to month, and year to year. But I am thinking about the star that led the magi to baby Jesus. And I am also thinking about things yet to come.

The Bible tells of many outer space heavenly events that will happen in the end times:

• Matthew 24:29 - Immediately after the distress of those days " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.


• Luke 21:25 - There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.


• Revelation 6:13-15 - And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.


• Revelation 21:1 - Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.

Being a scientifically minded "INTJ" personality type, I think about things like "Is that star really there?" and "If there is all this cosmic disruption in the future, did God plan it in the past?"

Nevermind that there is debate on how old the stars are. The light that we are receiving is old light. Even the light from the sun is about 8 minutes old. If you hear someone say that a star is 6000 light years away, that means that the light from that star is 6000 years old! We are seeing the past.

Let me put it to you a different way. If we had a very, very, very powerful telescope out in deep space, and we pointed it back to the earth, we would be seeing our past! And just supposing that it could obtain images of the earth's surface down to 1 meter squared, we could see the tents and flocks of Abraham or maybe even the civilizations that were here on the super-continent before the flood! Our past is out there - an active silent movie of earth's history recorded in reflective light.

Well, let's try to land this plane. Are you living a life worth rewatching? How much time do you spend in living for the things of this world? What are you doing to store up treasure in heaven?

The way we live out our lives affects how we spend eternity. I'm not talking about working to earn God's favor. I am talking about changing the way we live our lives so that we please the Father with our hearts and actions. The clock is ticking down - are you ready?

---Johnie