Took
a few pictures with my cell phone at the Fourth of July fireworks in our
community.
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Fireworks |
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The
explosive display of blazing color seemed impressive until I learned about this
past Thursday’s solar flare. According to this article, the flare released “… a
billion atomic bombs’ worth of energy into space…”
Did
you get that? A billion atomic bombs?
The
article also stated charged solar particles expected to reach earth’s magnetic
field today and tomorrow may possibly interfere with satellites and power
supplies.
And
speaking of fireworks—because of the flare, the northern lights are supposed to
be dazzling this weekend, perhaps visible as far south as Washington D.C.
These
verses come to mind:
“God’s
glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft
on exhibit across the horizon”
“God,
my God, how great you are!
Beautifully,
gloriously robed,
Dressed
up in sunshine,
And all
heaven stretched out for your tent
In
the Christian Classic, Your God is Too Small by J.B. Phillips, he writes, and “Is
it the eternal spirit in a man remembering here in his house of clay, the
shining joys of his real Home? No one, of course, can say. But the appeal of beauty,
which is universal, however distorted, or debased it may have become, cannot be
lightly dismissed. It is a pointer to something, and it certainly points to something
beyond the present limitations of time and space. We can at any rate say that
beauty arouses a hunger and a longing which is never satisfied in this world.”
John,
the revelator, in trying to describe the indescribable, reports the face of God
is “like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Revelation 1:16).
Could
it be that when we turn our eyes heavenward, we long to catch a glimpse of God’s
countenance? Could it be we’re longing for our true Home?
Yes,
the fireworks we saw dimmed in comparison to the solar flare. But that won’t
stop me from going to see them again.
Until
I get home, I’m going to be looking up as much as I can.