Eclipse was a wonderful moment

To the editor:

Greetings my friend, today I just witnessed the wonderful work of God.

As you may know, and hopefully you were able to witness it yourself, on April 8 at 3:08 p.m. there was a total solar eclipse and Berne was in the path of totality, meaning the moon completely covered the sun for four minutes. I must say it was an experience.

Thinking about it now brings my mind to look at God. God is the creator of everything we have. The Earth, the sun, stars, trees, sunrises, sunsets and so much more. What I think is so marvelous is how he created everything and it is beautiful.

God spoke all this into being. Isn’t that amazing? 

If you look at the stars and how they form constellations and the beauty of the galaxies, I do have to say how can anyone refuse to believe there is a God? God has given his creation to us to enjoy, even the eclipse has a purpose, so we can enjoy the beauty of it. God has given us all of this to point us to the master, creator of the universe. How marvelous.

God has even created you. In Psalm 139:13-14 King David says to God, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I Praise you, for I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” You see, King David knew who his creator was; it was God. Isn’t it amazing to know that the God who created the universe and all of its beauty has also created you fearfully and wonderfully. He created you just as you are and He sees you as wonderfully (beautiful) made. God has created everyone with a unique personality, and more importantly we are created with a soul that will last an eternity.

What makes God sad though is when we, his beautiful creation, are tainted with sin. Sin has an effective way of turning something that was created good and distorting it. In Isaiah 53:6 it says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him(Jesus) the iniquity of us all.” This verse tells us that everyone will go astray and that we are like sheep, I’ll get to the part on why being sheep is important. We have all gone astray, what leads us astray is our sin, Hebrews 3:13 tells us that our hearts can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. That is a scary thought, is it not?

I’m glad that we are like sheep though because Jesus is a shepherd and not just any shepherd, but the good shepherd. (John 10:11) Like any shepherd he will search and search till he finds his lost sheep. Amazing. Isn’t it?

I’m so glad that even with our desire to sin and distort the beauty of God’s creation he had already planned to send Jesus his son to die on the cross and carry our sins. Even when we go astray and Jesus leads us back to God, He can take what we have made ugly by our sins and turn it into something beautiful for his glory. God wants to transform us into the likeness of Jesus so we can be called sons of God and joint-heirs with Jesus.

So as a final comment I want to let you know that no matter the situation you're in and you don’t think God can save you or take your life and turn into something beautiful, let me tell you this, God is willing and wants to save you. If he can create the universe surly he can take your situations and make something fearful and wonderful out of them.

Blessing to you, until next time.  

Your friend from Christian Mission Fellowship, 

David Swartzentruber

Bryant