Eclipse
Tuesday 26th August
On a cloudy dreary day when we take the breakfast tray into our 93 year old father-in-law's room he will cheerfully say ”even though we can't see the sun, it is shining up there, it is always shining even if we can't see it.”
How true this is, and what a wise observation. The sun may not be shining on us, but it is shining. We tend to judge everything in its relationship to us. It is almost as if we think the sun, moon and earth all revolve around us. Of course from our view point they do, but we need to stop and learn to view things from God's point of view. Isaiah tells us that God will make Jesus of quick understanding, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth."
We take comfort that our Master will not judge just by what he sees and hears, and we need to learn that we also cannot always make wise decisions based on merely what we see and hear. When the sun stops shining on us, it simply means that there is something in between us and the sun, not that it has ceased to shine. It may be a cloud, or it may be that the earth has revolved so that the sun is now shining upon another part of the world, but the sun never sets and never stops giving off its healing beams of light.
Sometimes there is an eclipse of the sun when the moon gets in between us and it. There is also an eclipse of the moon when the earth gets in between the sun and the moon. When something comes between us and the sun or moon, then the good effects of the sun's rays or the moon's beams become lost to us temporarily. Fortunately eclipses do not last long. We need to remember that the light never really stopped shining, it only stopped shining on us because something came between us and it.
Now there is a scriptural lesson we can learn from this We all want "The LORD to make his face to shine upon us." David cried out in the Psalms, "God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us."
The face of God, just like the sun, is always shining, and if it does not shine upon us it is because we have allowed something to come between us and Him, just as there is an eclipse when something comes between us and the sun or moon.
It is interesting to remember that the moon has no natural light of its own, only the reflected light of the sun. When the earth comes between the sun and the moon, the light of the moon goes out and does not return until the earth gets out of the way again.
If we allow the son of God to shine upon us, then we can reflect that light to others. Paul tells us that we are in a "crooked and perverse generation among whom we shine as lights in the world."
Now we can only shine if we bask in the light of the son of God. When we allow worldly things to come between us and our saviour we can go into eclipse and fail to reflect light.
What is it that can cause us to have an eclipse so that we no longer shine? Paul asks this same question when he says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Paul's answer was a resounding "No." He says, "I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Let us be wise and resolve not to let anything come between us and the son of God. Daniel tells us that the "wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."