On Sunday night, August 12, NASA launched a spacecraft that will travel to the sun, a journey of 93 million miles for the next seven years at a cost of $1.5 billion. This journey will be the fastest ever, traveling at a record 430,000 miles per hour.

According to an Associated Press article, NASA needed a 23-story rocket, plus a third stage, to send the Parker Solar Probe into space. The Parker Probe is described as the size of a small car.

It’s the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living person, 91-year-old astrophysicist Eugene Parker, “who accurately theorized 60 years ago the existence of solar wind.” He witnessed the launch.

In his book, More Than Meets The Eye, Richard Swenson writes, “Ninety-nine percent of all the usable energy on Earth originates from the sun. In one second the sun gives off more energy than all the people of the earth have ‘produced’ during their entire stay on Earth.”

Our sun, solar system, and Planet Earth are nothing short of amazing and miraculous.   The writer of Psalms said it best, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).

The dictionary defines a miracle as an extraordinary or remarkable occurrence or development, especially one supernatural. The word miracle comes from a Latin word, mirus, meaning wonderful.

Though man has accomplished great things in outer space, I am in awe of the God who created this universe. Right now, though we have no sensation of motion, Planet Earth is spinning at approximately 1000 m.p.h. and traveling through space at about 67,000 m.p.h. Before the day is over, we will have traveled 1.6 million miles of our annual trek around the sun.

Albert Einstein once commented, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

It’s easy to take for granted that the earth stays in its orbit, or to miss the beauty of the sunrise and sunset each day. John Donne said, “There is nothing that God hath established in the constant course of Nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a miracle…if it were done but once.”

I am also in awe that God would come down from heaven to live and walk among us. Reading about the Parker Solar Probe going to the sun reminded me of the words of Astronaut Jim Irwin. On a photo of himself standing on the lunar surface, he wrote this thoughtful statement, “Jesus walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon.”

But most importantly, I am in awe that God’s Son would come and live in a person’s heart. Through faith in Jesus Christ, you and I can know the miracle of forgiveness that makes us a new creation.

Perhaps songwriter John Peterson said it best, “It took a miracle to put the stars in place; it took a miracle to hang the world in space. But when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole, it took a miracle of love and grace.”

 

 

Jan White is an national award-winning religion columnist. She can be reached at jan@janwhitewriter.com.