Dear Lighthouse,

 

            Winter is approaching.  The only thing I like about the cold weather to come is that generally we have clearer skies with less humidity.  This means really nice transparency for star gazing at night.  Also, one of my favorite constellations is rising in the south - Orion.  This group of stars has some really neat stars and nebulae and “stuff” in it.  There is a red star that is bigger around that the whole orbit that our planet makes around our sun - 93 million miles!  There’s a blue star that is so hot that if it were put in the place of our sun it would make Pluto look like a tropical resort!  There’s a huge blue and red nebula that is still producing new suns to light our galaxy.  Orion is flanked by the open cluster Pleiades and Taurus.  You may know the Pleiades better by the “Seven Sisters” name.  It is a collection of new suns that are rapidly moving apart across light years of space and time.  If you look closely with binoculars you can see well over 30 of these stars in an area of sky no bigger than the full moon.  Taurus, the Bull, features a red giant star at the tip of its horn.  This star, Aldebaran, is huge too.  It outer gases explode outward, taking away heat, and they cool as they leave the star’s core.  Then, as the core itself cools, pressure drops off allowing those outer gases to come crashing back inward at faster and faster speeds.  Someday this star will collapse in a violent explosion known as a supernova as its gases compress on each other a speeds approaching the speed of light itself - 186,000 miles per second!  What will be left is called a “black hole”.  It is a lightless point in space where the stars light is trapped in an intense gravity well.  The Hubble Space Telescope has peered beyond our galaxy and has seen whole galaxies like our own Milky Way spread out like grains of salt on a black cloth - millions of them, each containing billions of stars all their own, perhaps with several planets each orbiting them!

            Yet in all of this Earth remains unique because it is here, on this world, that the Lord God Almighty, Creator of ALL the universe chose to place Adam (which means Man).  It was here that Man walked with God in the garden of Eden.  It was here that Satan was cast from Heaven.  It was here that Man learned rebellion and chose evil over good and rejected God.  But God waited patiently on us to learn that we could chose good over evil and reach out for the Hand of God.  Then it was here, on a small planet spinning around an average star, that God sent His own Son - His Presence in the form of Man - to dwell with us and teach us how to come home again.  Then He died to open that way Home.  It is here that we live as a marked people, marked with His Holy Spirit, for the Day of His return.

            Now I ask you, are you living for the Big Picture?  Do you daily comprehend what it’s all about?  Or are you mired down in the little bothers, the little inconveniences, the stumbling blocks that are thrown in the way by the Enemy to keep your mind on Earthly things instead of Heavenly?  Do you ever look up from your daily schedule and daily grind to cast your eyes on the One who has called you out of Darkness and bids you to come Home?  Don’t miss the forest for all the trees.  In other words, don’t let this world’s worries and troubles steal away the joy of your salvation.  You are special to God.  You have been placed in just the right place in this whole universe for survival, for maturity, and for salvation to come.  I invite you to look up at the heavens this winter and see more than stars.  Cast your eyes up to Heaven and see God - the Face, the Mind, and the Hand of God Almighty.

            Please meditate on these verses below as you look at the Big Picture:

 

Psalm 147:4-5

“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.  Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.”

 

Job 9:7-9

“He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars.  He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.  He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.”

 

Job 38:29-33 (I suggest reading this whole chapter!)

“From whose womb come the ice?  Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?  Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?  Can you loose the cords of Orion?  Can you bring forth the constellations is their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?  Do you know the laws of the heavens?”

 

Acts 17:24-31 (selected parts)

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and doses not live in temples built by hands…From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us….In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.  For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed.  He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

 

I Peter 5:7

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”

 

John 13:36-14:6 (selected parts)

“Simon Peter asked Him, “Lord, where are you going?”  Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in Me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms;… I am going there to prepare a place for you…I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going….I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

 

Ephesians 1:13-14

“And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.  Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession -- to the praise of His glory!”