What Is Man?
A recent FB post makes these "astronomical" oberservations:
Want me to tell you something that will blow your mind or make you lose sleep?
Well, look at this picture.
Each of those dots you see is a GALAXY ...
And each GALAXY has roughly 100 BILLION STARS.
Also, each STAR has at least 1 PLANET.
Now how many galaxies do you think there can be in that picture?
And this is just a photograph of a very little parcel of the universe. — Astro Physics
The post continues ...
This makes me lose sleep, thinking about how so insignificant we really are.
Insignifant to whom?? To God? Never!
"When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God [the angels] and crowned them with glory and honor." (Psalm 8:3-5, NLT).
Never Try To Catch The Catcher
In the world of trapeze performance, there are "flyers" and there are "catchers." Imagine yourself a trapeze flyer sailing through the air, flipping as you go. Then at the end of your rotation, as you hang in mid-air, you see the catcher. Your natural impulse is to reach out and grab for him. That’s certainly what I would do. I’d grab anything I could -- his hands, his arms, his shirt, his hair. It wouldn’t matter. I’m grabbing a hold of something, anything, and hanging on to it for dear life!
But the flyer is trained to resist this impulse. He understands that it is preemptive for him to attempt to catch the catcher. Any such attempt would actually prevent the catcher from performing his task. In the world of high wire acrobatics, this principle has been reduced to a well-known axiom, attributed to Rodleigh of The Flying Rodleighs, which says, “The flyer is the one who lets go and the catcher is the one who catches. The flyer must never try to catch the catcher!”
One of the great lessons of the spiritual life is to learn not to strive when God has called you to rest, or rest when God has called you to strive. The most important place of rest and trust is in the promise of salvation. The Bible says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). In other words, don’t try to catch God, let God catch you!
When it comes to the salvation of your soul, you are the one who must let go and trust God to catch you. Those who insist on catching God will only prevent Him from doing what He has promised to do. It isn’t your job to finish the work of Christ, but to rest in the finished work of Christ. This means you must cease from striving to earn your salvation and put your trust in God’s promise to save you. As Jesus declared, “It is finished!” So, let the Catcher catch you!
Scribbled Prayers
One of the great privileges of serving as a deacon is the opportunity to be one of the first to pray over needs shared at the beginning of the worship service. Our congregation is invited to fill out prayer request cards which are available in each pew. They simply say, "Let us pray with you," leaving a blank space, with the prompt, "My request is ..."
A particular prayer request stood out to me. It was the scribblings of a young child filling out the blank prayer card as he sat in the pew. Just a squiggly line — up, down, and back and forth on the card.
I love the heart of a child eager to participate and share their scribbles for prayer. “Let the little children come to me, and don’t stop them, because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Luke 18:16, NIV).
It also reminded me that this is how a lot of my prayers must sound before the sovereign God. My praying must often be not much more than scribbles of unintelligible ideas and whinings when presented to Him. But I am glad that he knows them better than I do.
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26, ESV).