When God created the universe, He came up with an ingenious plan for keeping worlds in place. In our solar system, for example, the planets are kept in their predictable orbits by the gravitational pull of the sun at the center. If the sun suddenly disappeared, there would be nothing to hold the planets in place, and they would all spin off randomly and chaotically into space.
God created us in much the same way. Like planets, we too need a stable center in our lives: something firm and fixed we can orbit around. Without such a center, our lives can spin out of control and into space. Without a sun of some sort, we can feel as though we are floating aimlessly through chaos.
We all understand our need for a center. Unfortunately, sometimes we chose the wrong things to serve as our sun. Some of us, for example, center our lives around our work or our careers or our pursuit of success and material goods. Or we place another person at the center so our lives revolve around our spouse or our kids or some other significant other. As good and as wonderful as those relationships are, they make a poor center. Because as much as we may love them and they may love us, they are only companion planets. They are fallible and can and will (even if only unintentionally) fail us. And of course, given the fragility of life, they can, at any time, disappear.
If we make our lives revolve around another person, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. And at some point, we will eventually find ourselves spinning out of orbit. In order to have a stable life, our lives need to revolve something more reliable and unchanging around another then another fallen, broken person. As believers, of course, we know what there is only one center large enough and bright enough and stable enough to serve as our sun.
Dee Brestin puts it this way:
Put your trust in God. It sounds simplistic. Often people have a tendency toward depending on others instead of God. They cling too tightly. They don’t think they will ever be alone. They tend to make the other person almost like God, and they’re shocked when that person either lets them down or dies. How important it is to know that you have a Friend who is closer than a brother, who will never let you down and will never die.
In the end, there is only one suitable center: our relationship with God through Christ. Jesus alone is our proper sun, for He is the one we were created to orbit around. Our relationship with Him, if we have one, is the only thing in our universe that is permanent. It is the one thing that can never ever, be taken away because He has promised to never leave or forsake you. He will always be the secure center that come what may, is big enough and strong to keep you in orbit.
Perhaps that’s why Malachi calls Him “The Sun of Righteousness”. Or why Hebrews says that He is “the radiance of God’s glory” who “sustains all things by His powerful Word”. Or why Colossians says that “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together”.
Having Christ at the center is the key to remaining in orbit. God’s Son is the best Sun!
Rev. Dr. Michael Stine
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