Sun

I just wanted to mention, there's the question on the side panel now. If you feel like it, you're more than welcome to pick an answer. After a week I'll change it out and put up the answer to the previous week's question. We used to have the random mind-teaser thing a while ago, and I thought it might be fun to have it up again. I put one up last week...but it wasn't really that great of a question. This week's is quite a bit better I believe. It even appeals to Paul's history side. And who doesn't like something that involves Hannibal anyway? Just to clarify, we're not talking about Anthony Hopkins' character...in case that needed to be pointed out...

From a purely astronomical point of view, the sun is fairly average. It's of average size, it puts out an average amount of heat, it will live an average lifetime for a star. Taken in context with all the other stars in the universe, there really is nothing special about it. If you look at what it does for this particular area of the cosmos, however, you realize that it holds a very significant role. Were it not for the star that we call the Sun, there would not be life on this planet. There would just be no way that we could have survived. Granted, there are a number of other factors, but it just doesn't fit with what I'm trying to say to go in to all of those. I admit, I'm a fan of the sun. I love sunny days, especially in the fall and spring when it's bright and sunny, and yet not so hot that you start to sweat from walking out the door. I love days when you go to the beach, or to a park, or hiking in the mountains with a beautiful blue sky and the sun shining down. Sunsets can be some of the most beautiful natural events that happens so often that we easily come to forget about how pretty they really are. And even with how simple it seems from down here (we just get up in the morning, and up comes the sun for another day), there really is quite a bit going on to make it all work so that it actually emits energy that we get. There's so much that is still not understood about it. But it's still appreciated, and many times simply forgotten about as we expect it to work.

I have an album called Tension by a group known as Dizmas. Quite a strange name, and according to the band, "Dizmas is Greek; a lot of historians and theologians of the Bible believe that Dizmas was the name of the good thief on the cross next to Jesus. It's not biblical truth, so for us as a band, we don't necessarily claim it as absolute truth. The reason we decided to name ourselves Dizmas is more so that whenever somebody did ask us that same exact question (where did your name come from?), the first thing that we have to refer to is the day on the cross when Jesus Christ, in this guy's last breath, gave him a chance and gave him hope, and basically said "today you will be with Me in paradise." Just the hope for the thief that he had in those last minutes. That's kind of what we're trying to do is express hope to people found in Christ, and that's why we are named Dizmas."

The final song on that album (which is in the player coincidentally) is called 'Sun'. Now, if you listened to the song, and knew that the title was called 'Sun' but not the spelling, I think you would do as I did, and think that it was called 'Son'. Take a listen (it's about 2 minutes), and pay attention to the lyrics. I think that it's really easy to take God, who has made us and given us all these blessings, and to just get up in the morning and assume that he'll just keep on doing his 'job' while we go through our day. There is the easy trap to fall in to to just take the distant approach to God, and then say that there's nothing really all that special about it: 'Everyone has something that they believe in, so if yours is God, then that's great, for you'. And I think that's the approach that many now take today. But if you look closer, and move in for a more intimate view, you see that God is indeed special. He sent his Son to bring light to the world. His Son gives everlasting life. And His Son came willingly for us. We should be striving every day to serve Him because he deserves that from us. And because we should feel the need to serve Him, to show him some semblance of the love that he's shown us. How lucky we are, to have a Son do that for us, to show us that love in an incredibly personal way. Do I make you proud?