Sermon Passage: Colossians 1:12-18
Matt Dirks
Pete’s testimony Sunday night of God’s power displayed in the universe inspired me to surf some astronomy web sites, and I came across this incredible photo of the Orion nebula. Go ahead and click on it for a super-size look. Now kick back in your chair with your feet on the desk and just drink in the beauty for a minute or two. If you have to turn on Dora the Explorer for the kids so you can get a few minutes of quiet, go do it. Seriously. I’ll wait.
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OK, now that you’re back… Along with more than three thousand stars, you’re looking at clouds of cosmic gas where thousands more stars are in the process of being created. If you were caught in the middle of this radiation-filled death zone, you wouldn’t last a nanosecond even if you were with Spock in the USS Enterprise. But according to Colossians 1, even this broiling cloud of chaos is held together by Christ.
When was the last time your life felt like you were in the middle of the Orion nebula? When the chaos was overwhelming, to the point where you couldn’t hope to control the events happening around you, even if you wanted to?
Maybe that’s exactly where God wanted you to be. We’re so completely taken in by the fantasy that we have ultimate control over our lives, sometimes God has to put us in the middle of a cosmic firestorm to remind us that he’s the one who holds all things together, not us.
I’m putting this picture of Orion in my Favorites menu. Next time life gets chaotic, I’ll go back to this image and drink in the beauty of God’s chaotic cosmic construction project. And I’ll pray for God to reveal the creative work he’s doing in my life through the chaos.