When You Are Near

I kind of feel like I'm stealing from Philip a little when I mention the lunar eclipse that happened this morning, but I figure it's a rare enough event that I can do so without too much copyright infringement. I have always been interested in astronomy and the stars, planets, comets, black holes, galaxies...pretty much anything that has to do with space. Mandi mocks me for my lack of actual astronomical knowledge, but I generally just enjoy looking at the sky, and occasionally reading about interesting things that are being discovered about our universe. It really is amazing, seeing all that there is out there, and realizing how small a part of this entire creation we really are. Even with all of the knowledge that we've gained in the past 100 years or so, it's scarier still to realize how much of that we really don't understand, and how much more we don't even know about.

One of the things that's always impressed me since I became a Christian is how hard it is to look around you in everyday life and see everything that there is in our world, and be skeptical as to where it all came from and how it came to be. I guess, for me at least, while there are numerous theories on how everything works, and even more theories on how everything got started, it seems to me like it would be fairly obvious that everything had to have started with some type of creator. At least, that's how I think of it now.

I didn't become a Christian until I was 20, in 2003 (kinda hard to think that it's been 4 years already). One of my main problems was that I was simply too analytical. I needed to have concrete proof, something that I could put my hands on and say, for a fact, that it indeed was how people said it was. Wanting to follow a scientific route of study, I couldn't let myself simply take something on faith. You had to have proof, it's just how everything works. If you couldn't prove something beyond doubt with science and analytical thinking, then obviously there was something missing from you puzzle that you hadn't yet figured out. Thankfully, through friends, family and personal thought, I came to realize that I didn't have to have hands-on proof. I had to have faith. Faith in God and faith in His promises. For me, the realization that everything didn't require a data-set that showed everything to be true was a revelation, and allowed me to make my commitment to God. I think that one of the books that truly helped me out was one that we read in our sophomore year for our bible class entitled "The Case for Christ". Here was a man, who was also analytical in his thinking, and formerly an atheist, going around asking experts their opinions and reasonings for why Jesus was the Son of God. To see things laid out in such a concise, interview format was very insightful for me. After finishing that book, I later went back and read another one his books, "The Case for a Creator". It follows the same idea, with Strobel going around asking leading scientists in their field why there must be a creator to our universe. If you haven't read them, I would certainly recommend them to anyone, simply as another pathway to learn more.

I guess what I'm getting at here, is that during my first 20 years when I was looking for that concrete proof, for that beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt moment that would make it all clear, I was missing some of the biggest hints that could possibly have been given to me. Our creation, the world we live in, the universe we inhabit...all these things that show us the splendor of God, and the creativity that He possesses. People accredit many things to chance, to natural selection, to evolution, or to whatever it is that makes them feel the best in terms of a grander scheme, but they all have to start somewhere. There has to be a beginning, something that put it all in motion. If you read about the odds of things turning out as they have simply through chance, well...it's ridiculously low. And for people that are looking for the most plausible explanation, to choose some infinitely small number over the idea that there is a creator doesn't make it seem as if they're trying to pick the most likely option, at least to me anymore.

Seeing the eclipse this morning, and thinking of how God could have imagined such a thing, and to be able to witness it, was very awe-inspiring. And realizing that even with the grand scale of the universe, God still looks at each and every one of us individually is truly humbling. For me, something like the eclipse that is truly spectacular gives me a sense of the closeness of God. It lets me know when He is near.