Sound and light

As a kid growing up on our farm, I recall seeing a phenomenon where I first learned about the speed of sound.  Our neighbor would occasionally fix his fence and we could see him about a quarter of a mile from us taking that big hammer or post maul and pounding a post. When he hit it there was a delay until the sound of the reached our ears. So envision this: he hits the post silently then about a second later you hear the whack of the maul on the post. It was weird the first time to witness this but sound travels slower than light and sight ! Pilots call the speed of sound “mach one” which is 340 meters per second ! Mach one in a jet translates to 768 miles per hour. That’s moving !!! But  light, on the other hand, is incredibly faster (186,000 miles per second) and in the same jet would mean 700 MILLION miles per hour, which we cannot achieve !!  This explains why I saw our neighbor before I heard him.

Consider this: aside from our sun, the nearest star to us, named Alpha Centauri, is 4.37 light years from us.  That means if you could travel at the speed of light it would take you over four years to reach it (going at 700 million miles per hour). So this adds up to a distance of 25.6 trillion miles away !!  The universe, is incredibly VAST !!!   And Who created it?  Our God is AWESOME in power, wisdom, etc !!!!   And though God created this vast expanse we know as the universe, He is not confined to or limited by it yet He is very involved with us just the same.  He sees beyond time, space and light so that He can view your entire life at a glimpse while we see one day at a time and at times reflect back into our past.  He sees your trials ending and shaping you more into His image, we tend to see just the mess of the moment.

As we get into His Word more and start to take more of His mind into ours we can start to actually and genuinely rejoice though trials hit us that the end will produce something good because He says so !  I reminded our folks just the other night at church of James 1:2 where in the original James tells us to “decide our trials to be a good thing” where the KJV says “Count it all joy”.  If we look at them in the “speed of sound” in the moment, rather than the “speed of light” in the Master, we have a hard time seeing the good in them. But if look from His vantage point we can see something redemptive in it !

Are you going through a trial today? Don’t let it slow you down, look at it from His perspective too.   How about someone you know, are they going through a rough patch? Encourage them that this too shall pass and God’s intent is to refine them even through this and you are there for prayerful suppor or any other you can offer.  And if a trial isn’t on your plate today, it will be soon, ha !   Remember, when it comes, the man with the post maul, but also the One Who always does all things WELL, even through your trials !!!