“And take heed, lest you lift your
eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all
the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a
heritage…..For the Lord your God is a consuming
fire, a jealous God.” – Deuteronomy 4:19; 24
On Monday, August 21, 2017 the sun and moon will do a
special little dance called a “solar eclipse”. The longest totality will be visible only 30
minutes from where I live. This has
brought hundreds of thousands of people to this area, threatened gas and food
shortages, overwhelming internet usage and outages, and even power
outages. Grocery store shelves have been
emptied, traffic has been backed up, and literally, I think some people have
lost their ever loving minds over this!
Sorry not sorry.
That all just makes me wonder…how many of those people truly
realize who is responsible for such a beautiful display of nature? Many will say “Mother Nature”, to which I say…exactly
WHO is that? Others will fail to give
creation a creator at all. How disheartening
it is to know that God is denied praise for such a beautiful moment in history.
God warns us not to give our worship to such a display of
beauty in the sun, moon, and stars, but what is worship? What would make the eclipse event that we’ll
soon be enjoying into a moment of idolatry?
What would cause God to see it as our worship of the things He created,
rather than honoring and praising Him for what we will see? It’s simple.
If we leave God out of it, if we fail to give him the praise
and honor only HE deserves, then it’s idolatry.
If we praise how beautiful the light rings are, how perfectly placed
Bailey’s beads are, the magical effects of shadow snakes, and its full effect
on animals and nature, and don’t give God the Creator the praise, we’ve robbed
him of our worship. Serving the things
of the world that we see, even for a brief moment without giving him the praise
is idolatry. Something as simple as a
sunset with vibrant colors can be idolatry if we give our hearts over to love
the sunset, and fail to love the God who created it.
This may seem petty to you.
It may seem like “OMG! Another Christian trying to be legalistic and
throw a bunch of rules down our throats (insert rolling of eyes!)” Ya know what…I
don’t care as much about your opinion as I do your disrespect of Him, so I will
tell you the truth. Now it’s up to you
to determine what you will do with it.
He is a “consuming fire, a jealous God” and the One I love.
To me, the eclipse will just be another way He shows us His magnificence,
and His infinite wisdom in the creation of our world. He didn’t have to give us the beautiful colors,
sun rays reaching out like light shining through crystals, or create in the
animals the mysterious ways of reacting to the eclipse. It could have been just a simple as a shadow
coming across a light bulb. But NO! He
did much more! He made it something
mysterious to see, something to be in awe of.
And why? Was it for the animals to
see? No, it was for US, His beloved. How
pathetically self-centered we would be if we didn’t give him the honor and
praise for what He has given us.
“If I have observed the sun when it shines,
or the moon moving in brightness, so that my heart has been secretly
enticed, and my mouth has kissed my hand (thrown a kiss); this also would be an iniquity deserving
of judgment, for I would have denied God who is above.” – Job
31:26-28
I will give Him my worship and adoration for what I see in the Solar Eclipse. Will you?
photo creds: National Geographic
photo creds: National Geographic
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