As always happens, you’ll want to listen to this as I don’t stick to the following as a “script.” Just listen.
I am like the moon, without the sun I hang in darkness, too.
I love that line. It comes from a song we sing at church, Burn in You, written by Josh White. I love how it reminds us of both God’s radiant glory and how, when we’re rightly oriented to him, we reflect that glory.
It’s top of mind because this week I heard from a listener who, it turns out, is used to working at home. But during this crazy time of quarantining ourselves due to the coronavirus, apparently one of her co-workers is really struggling…and this listener mentioned that while the co-worker’s really resistant to God, that she nonetheless hopes to be a light for that person.
As we’ve been doing on some of these Sunday reflections, I want to share a shorty devotional from Charles Spurgeon that he wrote back in the late 1800s. And I love the fact that God’s word is still – and will always be – timely and relevant.
We begin with today’s Scripture reading from Job 38. Remember that in the book of Job, after all the dudes talk at each other ad nauseum, God speaks up and gets in everybody’s business. This is God talking, using the names of constellations to make his point:
Can you fasten the chains of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?
Can you bring out the constellations in their season and lead the Bear and her cubs?
Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?
Can you command the clouds so that a flood of water covers you?
Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go?
Do they report to you: “Here we are”?~ Job 38:31-35, CSB[1]
It’s crazy how much this applies today. We log moral complaints about God, and I could imagine him saying this to me…Yo, dude! Really?
So here’s Spurgeon:
If inclined to boast of our abilities, the grandeur of nature may soon show us how puny we are. We cannot move the least of all the twinkling stars, or quench so much as one of the beams of the morning.
We speak of power, but the heavens laugh us to scorn. When the Pleiades shine forth in spring with vernal joy we cannot restrain their influences, and when Orion reigns aloft, and the year is bound in winter’s fetters, we cannot relax the icy bands. The seasons revolve according to the divine appointment, neither can the whole race of men effect a change therein.
Lord, what is humanity?
In the spiritual, as in the natural world, man’s power is limited on all hands. When the Holy Spirit sheds abroad his delights in the soul, none can disturb; all the cunning and malice of men are ineffectual to stay the genial quickening power of the Comforter. When he deigns to visit a church and revive it, the most inveterate enemies cannot resist the good work; they may ridicule it, but they can no more restrain it than they can push back the spring when the Pleiades rule the hour. God wills it, and so it must be.
On the other hand, if the Lord in sovereignty, or in justice, bind up a man so that he is in soul bondage, who can give him liberty? He alone can remove the winter of spiritual death from an individual or a people. He looses the bands of Orion, and none but he. What a blessing it is that he can do it. O that he would perform the wonder to-night.
Lord, end my winter, and let my spring begin. I cannot with all my longings raise my soul out of her death and dullness, but all things are possible with thee. I need celestial influences, the clear shinings of your love, the beams of your grace, the light of your countenance, these are the Pleiades to me. I suffer much from sin and temptation, these are my wintry signs, my terrible Orion. Lord, work wonders in me, and for me. Amen.[2]
What a great reminder. As I often say, “Who gets to be God?” But when we are rightly oriented in vertical relationship, we are free to reflect his light — his Son’s light — horizontally. So in the midst of the world’s crazy, the good news remains The Good News, and even at a distance we can make them wonder why we could possibly be joyful in a time so filled with worry and angst.
In a sense, it’s time to be like the moon and reflect the Son.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
[1] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), Job 38:31–35.
[2] C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).