Building a "SUN SUBSTITUTION DEVICE"?

9/20/2005

Building a “SUN SUBSTITUTION DEVICE?” 

Don’t be silly...

What would you think of the man or woman who spent HOURS every week planning and scheming and gathering materials for, and trying to build a “SUN SUBSTITUTION DEVICE”—a machine that would bring them personal light and warmth and gravity and ultraviolet light for growing plants, in the event of a “sun-failure?” What would you think a man or woman or young one who acted as if SURELY one of these days, though it has always been faithful SO far, “the sun won’t come up” anymore? What would you think of such a person, and the way they spend their efforts and energy and money and passion?

“JUST IN CASE the sun disappoints me, and doesn’t appear on the horizon some morning—just in case—I’ll build a world around me that will protect me from the eventual failure of the sun to shed its light and warmth on me.”

Such a person would be very foolish and destructive and be WASTING THEIR LIFE on a ridiculous quest, based on an absurd premise. Not only would they be sinking endless resources into a wasted notion of the unfaithfulness of the sun’s rising each morning, but if it DIDN’T rise one morning, all of their efforts to protect themselves would be ridiculously futile in protecting them ANYWAY!

And so... We all, if you are reading this, inhabit this planet someone arbitrarily decided to call “Earth.” We are, together, hurling through space at 67,000 miles per hour (or, 107,000 kph for many of you who don’t travel any miles 8) ). No, more accurately, we are traveling together at 2 MILLION miles per hour (3.2 million kph), even while lying in bed, when considering the speed of earth’s rotation, and solar system and galactic movement, in addition to the orbital speed around our star we have arbitrarily called “the Sun.” Here’s the not-terribly-funny part: the majority of our species here on earth function daily with some utterly amazing similarities of behavior to the ridiculous illustration above about the “Sun Replacement Device” obsession.

“Did you know...” that it is FAITHLESSNESS that provokes each of US to such behavior in our daily lives? Let’s be honest and big about looking at ourselves here. What is this thing called “sin” we are so inclined to indulge in when we take the short and ignorant and foolish view of “life?” Sins are actions that defy God’s hope and heart. Sin is based in LACK OF FAITH, as James, Paul, Peter and Jesus all attested. Sin’s roots are in mistrusting the love and loyalty and wisdom of our Father in Heaven. We’re not SURE “the sun will come up tomorrow”—and such unBelief promotes our wasteful and foolish choices of sin and self-indulgences and fears.

Because of Father’s kind provision and protection of us in our anomalistic ratios of oxygen and moisture, and distance from our star amongst solar systems in the universe, and a thousand other “statistically impossible” factors, we are VERY comfortable on this small 25,000-mile-around nonluminous celestial body called Earth, all in all. Consequently, we have, obviously, FAR too much time on our hands to “decorate” ourselves, and to “get just right” our little plot of mud-space on this earth. We “invent, and play games” to use our “time” and entertain ourselves on our hurtling round rocket. We find ways, endlessly and relentlessly, to be more important than, and enslave, and extract “wealth” from other inhabitants on this rock ride.

But, let’s not be so childish. Can we please step back and take a larger view of it all?

The Truth is, “most” (according to Jesus) have lost Sight of why we are here and whose we are, and what pleases our Father. We “SIN” because we forget, and even “deliberately forget” as the Scriptures say. We sin because we don’t see, anymore, the absolute ABSURDITY of building an apparatus around us—”just in case” God is unfaithful and unloving. We indulge our egos, and fill our time and energy in the folly of indulging and “protecting” ourselves from the possibility that the Son just might not be there for us in the morning. Jealousy, unforgiveness, lust, fear, pride (in WHAT?!), selfishness, materialism, greed, hatred, competitive lusts... these are all so short-sighted and animal, and unTrusting, at their base. We sin to inebriate and stone our senses, hoping to fill a void that can be supplied and completed in no manner other than in Christ Jesus. There is no respite or peace ever to be found in trusting ourselves instead of our Maker and Father, or indulging ourselves with the trinkets and opiates around us on the rock ride. Sin is, really, simply, unBelief at its core. “Just in case” the Son isn’t there for me, I’ll build a world around me, decorate it, and even decorate my carbon and water earth suit, comparing it all to others. I’ll spend my resources and senses on this present age’s illusions, fill my time with them, complete my unremarkable sojourn amongst my peers (leaving but a “blot” and no “mark” worth notice)… and THEN I’ll create my “theology” to accommodate all my fears and my self-life and failures.

From the Beginning it was not so.

You were not created for a meaningless self-indulgent self-providing rock ride.

There’s a better Way than the oft-tried and certain failure, of a life spent in unBelief. There is no fulfillment misTrusting Father, His Love, or His Wisdom for your life and mine. His Way is Free and Full and embarrassingly greater than all of that naïve senseless self-indulgent fearful prideful empty living of those competing for, and decorating rocks.

The Answer? His name is Jesus. At the mention of His name, we bend our knee.

At the mention of His name, we bend our knee.

True Life begins at that moment... If we are honest to the core, with no “strings” or “conditions” or “take-backs” of our surrender to Him, our existence given in total trust and obedience of Him begins to fill our lives with color and texture and power and love and meaning. And, like a tender shoot in the desert, we then cultivate that trust in Him, in all our ways and choices and moments and resources, awakening day by day to yet more that we lay in His lap, at His Altar. With our eyes on Him, rather than this spinning gyroscope called “the world” and its shallow duration, we seek to know Him who is “invisible” to the limited light spectrum that can be processed by our earth eyes.

Let it, too, be said of you, “He, she regarded disgrace for the name of Christ as of greater value than all of the things of earth, because he, she was looking forward to His reward. He, she feared not the world’s anger; persevering because they saw Him who is invisible.”