Per plenty of published projections predicting a pretty plump path, people from Maine to Texas (local cloud cover-contingent) are set to see quite a sight:  just two hours from now, day will literally become night.  In a tad over “the blink of an eye” (but close!) daylight will turn to darkness.

For a few fast minutes anyway.

That’s right, it’s Solar Eclipse Day as mass media outlets have been breathlessly blaring with tremendous anticipation all weekend in particular; the event is about to arrive with full scientific force but here’s what’s filling my mind this monumental moment:

• how in the world can any rational, brain-possessing person actually believe that there is no God, that nature – on any  day but perhaps particularly and most poignantly an eye-popping planetary event like the imminent Solar Eclipse – is a product of mere coincidence!  Preposterous.  Impossible.
• the utter, sheer, peerless power of Omnipotent God.
• just as a solar eclipse can block our planet from the Sun, so also sin can block our life from the Son.
• I view this as just the latest (and so far “greatest”?) “small mercy” being given by God to humanity, worldwide, as planetary, astronomical events like this tend to turn the attention and focus of the masses upward, to the skies, literally to heaven and thus the throne therein and the Lord who sits thereon.  I view the terror attacks of 9/11 in 2001 and the (very unexpected, “totally unlikely”) massive box office success of The Passion of the Christ  in 2004 and of course the Covid pandemic in 2020 in particular in a similar way, i.e., God’s gracious attempts to “smack humanity in the face” not to punish or discipline but to wake it out of its decades-long spiritual slumber.  To “shake” it out of its spiritual stupor as if to say, “I’m coming soon!  Behold, I’m standing at the doorstep, knocking, giving anyone and everyone the opportunity to freely let me into the home of their heart, to single-handedly helm your soul and spirit from this moment for all eternity.”

Which nicely brings us to the meat, the main point of this post:  may we use this stellar solar event with worldwide watching to “examine ourselves” to see if we are indeed redeemed, to pinpoint where we stand on the spiritual spectrum – such a solemn subject and by far the most important of this entire life – or at least come quite close to confirming which kind of person we are of the four types among mankind, as follows, and to act accordingly:

• He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him.
• He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child, teach him.
• He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep, awaken him.
• He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man, follow him.

… in other words, to heed the Holy Spirit’s and Paul’s pointed words of warning to wisely…

• “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (2 Corinthians 13:5a)

Paul uses an exclamation point.

God uses solar eclipses and other such events to get our attention, to “shake us and wake us” to a few fine facts…

How small and puny people are in the grand scheme of things, how truly little our lives are by comparison.

How helpless we are without Him, especially spiritually.

How much we need Him in every aspect and facet of life – this one and the (much, much, much, much, much longer) one to come.

How mighty and matchless and masterful and all-powerful He is.

Or as countless singers (like the Statler Brothers) have sung to the Lord for 75 years now:  How great Thou art, Lord!  How. Great. Thou. Art.

 

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