Here is my answer. It’s from this website fifteen years ago. (I’ve tweaked it a tad.)
The mind is a funny thing. It can be creative in the small hours of the morning and solve your problems. As a high school algebra student, I had that happen more than once. I’d go to bed puzzled about a problem, then wake up with the answer.
Great when your mind solves a problem without actually involving you in the process!
The mind can also be anxious in those hours. Half the people I know who wake up between midnight and dawn tell me they are worried about unidentified problems. Anxiety is a sleep-stealer.
Once in a while, I have awakened with a great article that just cried to be written. On one occasion, I got up and wrote it down. Next morning, far from being disappointed, I was impressed. Good stuff, I thought. I worked with it over the next few days and then sent it off to several magazines to see if the editors had a use for it.
InterVarsity Press’ His magazine bought the article and ran it in a choice place–the inside back cover. Over the next 15 years, from time to time I would receive small checks in the mail from other magazines that ran it. Several notes from editors in foreign countries like Korea and New Zealand advised me they were running the article.
So, I learned that when something is hammering on my brain in the middle of the night, to get up and write it down.
So, one morning this week, I was lying in bed thinking about this world we’re privileged to live in. About this planet we are privileged to live on. This is the result…
NO VIBRATIONS.
Here we are on this globe we named Earth, hurling through space at so many thousands of miles per minute. The most amazing thing to me is the absence of vibrations.
We go outside in the daytime and see the sun and at night the moon and stars, to remind us of our precarious position in the universe, where we are and what we are doing.
And yet. We are as steady as a rock. The glass of water on my desk, just to the right of the laptop, does not ripple.
Air Force One vibrates and rumbles with turbulence. The largest planes are still subject to air pressures and wind variations outside.
And yet earth doesn’t seem to move.
One would think life on this small planet would be much like trying to cook a meal on an RV as it tools down the interstate–swaying, bumping, swerving.
But it’s not. It’s steady.
How amazing is that.
The comic strip “Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!” for December 5, 2010, gives us the numbers the above material was needing. A professor tells “rockiteers” the answers to the question: “How fast are you moving?” How’s this….
–1,000 mph is the approximate speed the earth is rotating at the equator.
–66,000 mph is the approximate speed the earth is revolving around the sun.
–43,000 mph is the approximate speed our solar system is moving inside our galaxy.
–450,000 mph is the approximate speed our galaxy is rotating.
–1.3 million mph is the approximate speed our galaxy is traveling through the universe.
And then the professor notes: “If all this movement were in the same direction, that would be a combined 1.9 million miles per hour. No wonder you’re tired!” He pauses, then adds, “Not all the movement is in the same direction, and actual speed is hard to determine in a universe where everything is moving. But any way you measure it, we are moving!”
And without vibrations. How amazing is this!
THE BOREDOM.
Life on this planet is so orderly and so predictable that it’s possible to live out our entire existence without ever looking up and considering the God who created all this or the eventual destination of Creation once we arrive at wherever it is we are heading at break-neck speed.
The sensation of speed is missing since space is mostly vacant. Well, there’s no atmosphere, we’ll put it like that, to cause friction. And there are no objects to zoom by and remind us that we are whizzing past at lightning speed.
We conveniently forget that we are living on a moving object. Like ants on a golf ball.
One would think that to experience earthly life as boring would take some doing. But it requires very little effort. That is a tribute to the orderliness and steadiness of this planet. Our failure of look up and think of God is a compliment to the architecture and infrastructure of the earth He has given us.
It has its occasional upheavals in the way of volcanoes and earthquakes, its windstorms and tornadoes, hurricanes, dust storms, floods. But for the most part, they are the vast exceptions.
Life on Planet Earth is so predictable that an entire profession has arisen of professionals devoted to telling us what the air will be like the next day and the next week and beyond. We call them meteorologists. Weather people. The fact that they keep their jobs at all is a compliment to the Creator.
THE VARIETY.
In Arizona, there are the deserts and the Grand Canyon. Colorado has Rocky Mountain peaks to die for. In California, it’s the coastline on the west, desert in the southeast, and mountains in every direction. Mississippi has its rolling hills, Alabama has its sweet little mountains (I’m thinking Cheaha and DeSoto State Parks), Minnesota has its lakes, Louisiana has its swamps, and Florida is limned with gorgeous beaches. (Limned = outlined. I like the word.)
And think of other parts of this globe–the Arctic, the Antarctic, Australia. Africa. The depths of the ocean. Life in the jungle. Life on the Sahara.
I’m not an expert on any of these things, but it seems that the geography of our Moon is made up of one crater after another. Mars will have a mountain ridge here and craters there, but it seems to be pretty much the same in every direction.
Ah, but earth. Earth is clearly the gem of the universe.
After my first visit through Colorado, I looked for ways to express my delight. “God created Colorado on one of His better days,” I would tease. “The Lord said, ‘Let me show you what I can do when I really set my mind to it,’ and He gave us Colorado.”
It would appear that Earth is that handiwork to show what God did when He really set His mind to it.
Fisher Humphreys, theologian and popular professor, says, “We know Heaven is going to be fascinating because earth is so interesting.” He adds, “Who but God would have thought of creating oysters and then putting them at the bottom of the sea?”
THE COLORS.
As far as I can tell, there was no inherent need for our world to come in technicolor. It would seem to work just as well in black and white and various shades of gray. And yet, God gave us colors.
And man, what colors. Stand outside just after sundown and watch what the sky does with colors. One wishes he were an artist capable of capturing such glory. Photographers try and invariably come up short.
The colors of our universe seem to be one more indication of the glory and generosity of God. He did it because He could.
The colors delight us and make life so much richer. They also challenge us. Consider skin color, for instance, and the human conflict that has produced.
Good job, Lord.
Earth is something else.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? (Psalm 8:3-4)
The Heavens are the heavens of God, but the earth He has given to the children of men. (Psalm 115:16)
Let’s take good care of this earth. There doesn’t seem to be another one waiting to replace it when we use it up.
Thank you, Father, for Earth, our dwelling place for this part of our existence. We are stunned by your power and wisdom, your design and benevolence. We are blessed by your generosity and awed by your might.
O, help us to be good stewards of this majestic land we call our home. May we conserve its resources and not squander its provisions.
We look forward to the time in Your Time when we shall be released from these mortal bodies and earth itself shall be restored to its glory. Creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
Until then, Father, Thank you. Bless you. Good job.
One added note. I’m thinking about the colors, sounds, fragrances, variations, etc., of this planet and something occurs to me. When we arrive in Heaven, there will be new variations we never thought of.
We get a little glimpse of what’s ahead by statements from our Lord. Consider–
–In His resurrected body, the Lord Jesus ate food but appeared and disappeared without opening doors. He said, “Touch and see. A ghost does not have a body as I have.” (See John 20:27 and Luke 24:39).
–Jesus said in Heaven people do not marry or have weddings, but are like the angels. And how is that? He didn’t say.
–I love our Lord’s statement to Nicodemus in John 3. As they spoke of spiritual things, Jesus said, “No one has been to Heaven except the One talking to you. And I’m a native.” (Okay, that’s my free translation of 3:13. Seems to fit though.)
I tell people that when you breathe your last here and your first “there,” you should “get ready to be surprised.” No matter what Randy Alcorn and all the other “experts” said, nothing has prepared you for what you are about to experience. And I cannot wait.