Friday, January 13, 2017

Just A Rock

He didn't choose Mars, named after the Roman god of war and ruddy in complexion.
He didn't choose Mercury, named "the messenger to the gods," and small enough to speed around the solar system earning that name.
He didn't choose Venus, though her name means "goddess of love and beauty."

He chose Moon.
Just Moon.
She has no proper name.  

She's just a rock, Moon is, with no stunning beauty except the beauty given her. She's just a rock, sometimes so dark in the night sky that her form isn't visible. But she's just a rock, and her only reputation hasn't been won by anything she's done on her own. Yet she's just a rock, chosen as the rock by the One God who makes such decisions.

Moon, she's as the bondservant of the sun. She's bound by the sun's gravitational pull and she serves his glory in his domain which includes all the planets in the solar system whether rocks Mars, Mercury, Venus, and even Pluto or not rocks. All are bound by his gravitational pull, but Moon is also bound by his beauty and by the good word of God Himself who refers to her as one of the "two great lights." He calls her "the lesser light," and He gave her rulership over the night.

Rulership. And she has no strength of her own. No pull.

Over unruly night. And billions of stars blaze and riot and fall from the sky, and  as many people do the same, when the sun tamely goes down.

I woke early this morning, went out back, watched the full moon go down and thought about these things. I thought how wonderful to see the moon full with sunlight, and to know that tonight he will pull her closer and closer to himself, by his strength, till she's not seen in the sky, yet she will be felt from one end of the oceans to the other just as strongly as when she is as she is now.

Marvelous that her effect on the tides on earth have nothing to do with her visibility, but everything to do with the sun's effect on her.

Maybe the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the tides on earth is enacted again and again, month by month, and year by year every night in the sky above to give those who look up the very evidence which assures them it's not foolish to hope for a place far and away better than this world which does riot in the dark. It's a heavenly hope, but there's reason of weighty substance given every night to hope for a heavenly shore where God's light will be the one light needed there and there will be no need for a lesser light.

Maybe this hope is also for those who look up into the night sky and believe the same one light-Light of the heavenly country-can so shine in the soul as the soul waits for what it cannot yet see.

I watch Moon this morning and think these thoughts.

The old hymn comes to mind-
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is what I understand while watching the sun's effect on Moon.

Moon, she's just a rock without a real name. She's meek, and the meek inherit the earth.

Me? I'm just me.

Jesus? He's Rock, too. He made Himself of no reputation,, took on the form of a bondservant, and was right to say, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."

Just so. Seeing the moon, I see the glory of the sun in a measure which allows me to look at it full on and not go blind. Isn't this the manner of how I might look at the glory of God and live-to look fully on Jesus?

May I make myself of no reputation.
May I take on the form of a bondservant.
May I be bound by the pull of God's Spirit on my spirit.

I have no light of my own, and whatever pull I have on the tides on earth-waves of people on every shore-must belong to the pull of God.

He is the great Light.

His pull is strong.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig