Working from home has it advantages and disadvantages. One thing that I really enjoy is being home when my kids wake up for the day (I start work at 7am and I am often the only one awake for 1.5-2 hours). Today my daughter, Karis, woke up, came into my "office" and sat on my lap as I was answering emails. After she settled in, she looked outside at the sunshine, trees, and North Carolina red-clay in our back yard. After a few minutes, Karis looked at me and said "God turned the sun on." (My wife, Sarah, and I have, at times, told her that God turns the sun off so that when we lay her down at night she won't be as afraid of the darkness in her room, but this is the first I have heard her say that God turned the sun on.) Immediately my "sophisticated" mind started thinking. I wanted to explain to her that the sun is always on, that the world turns and that causes us to have day and night.
Then... it hit me... Karis was right! God did turn the sun on. As I thought about it, I realized that God, long ago, turned the sun on. In Genesis we read that on the first "day" there was only darkness; God said "let there be light" and there was! With those four simple words, God turned the sun on. This first day of the seven days of creation (and yes I believe it is a literal 7 [24-hr] days) was an amazing thing. God said "let there be light" and the sun, a burning ball of gas that is 93million miles away from the earth, formed out of nothing. God's power is extensive! Out of nothing creation, including the sun, came to be!
In addition to the initial "turning on" of the sun, God turns the sun "on" every day. God, the creator of everything, saw fit for the earth to spin (I won't pretend to be smart here and try to talk about the benefits of a revolving earth, suffice it to say that it is essential that the earth spins on an axis) and it is by His sovereign will that the earth continues to spin. The earth will continue to spin until He sees fit to bring this world to an end. And what is even more impressive is that He determined the number of days that the sun would "rise" before He spoke it into existence.
Each new day is a gift from God. God turned the sun on and gave us another day to praise Him and serve Him. It is by His sovereign will that the earth continues to spin and give us new days, and the reason that it still spins is because he is not finished with us yet. God has ordained each and every day and each and every detail for this earth until the time that He will create a new heaven and new earth. If you doubt that God pays attention to detail, you need to read passages in scripture that speak on how much He cares for this world. We read that a sparrow will not fall to the ground without God knowing about it. We read that God knew us while He knit us together in our mother's womb. We also see that God knows the number of hairs on our heads (and not everyone's hair is as easy to count as mine!). And it is because of His attention to detail that we know that God is working in everything for His will to be executed. This is not to say that freewill doesn't exist. Somehow, God works freewill and His sovereignty together for His purposes. (I will not attempt to try to fully understand God because His knowledge and wisdom are beyond measure.) Each day exists so that God's will can be executed.
In Karis' simple recognition that God turned the sun on there was a huge amount of theology. God is all powerful: He made the sun out of nothing with four simple words, God is sovereign: the number of days that the sun "rises" has been ordained before there was time, and God's will is perfectly executed: He works in even the minutest of details so that His will is perfectly executed. I pray for more insight into God brought on through the mind of a child.
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