The Heavens Declare

Good morning everyone and happy Saturday to you all!  Most mornings I am up around 5 a.m. and today was no exception.  It is so calm and still this morning and the Rocky Mountain air is sweetly crisp and cool.  We are at high altitude here in Colorado, so we have incredible views of the sky.  The air is thin and clear and we are so high up that the wonders of the heavens play out in stunning detail.  Our home sits at 6,115 feet and the back faces south, so we see the setting and rising of the sun and moon perfectly.  The stars are incredible at night too.  This morning, I was chillin’ on our back deck and I took some photos of the moon as the sun was coming up.  As I looked at the moon just hanging there in space, a verse came to mind and it amazed me that people don’t believe in God even after seeing such an amazing part of His creation.

You can see the moon in the clear blue early morning sky.  Since we are above a mile high, I can zoom in on the moon so close you can see the craters.  Check out these photos.  How can anybody say God doesn’t exist while looking at this?  Every day we see the wonders of God and they declare His glory!  They prove that He exists and we are without excuse.

Who do you think made that?  Who do you think holds it in the sky and keeps it from crashing down on us?  You know Who.  The moon is telling you.  It is God, the Creator of the universe, the One and Only whose Name is I AM!  He created the moon and His fingerprints are all over it.

“The heavens declare the

glory of God;

the skies proclaim the

work of his hands.

Day after day they pour

forth speech;

night after night they

display knowledge.

There is no speech or

language

where there voice is not

heard.”

Psalm 19:1-3

Those are the verses that came to my mind while I was taking the moon shots.  Every single day the heavens declare and the skies proclaim that God exists and He is glorious!  They show the work and knowledge of our Creator!  The same God Who made this planet we live on and all that we see above us in the skies is the same God Who made you and me!  If God didn’t exist, then that moon wouldn’t be in the sky and we wouldn’t even be here to see it anyway.  God is in control and that is a truth that will never change.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”

John 1:1-5

All things were made by God in the beginning.  The Word is Jesus Christ and everything was made through Him.  Jesus is God in human flesh.  He is the light that shines in the darkness of this world.  That is the glory of Christmas!  God came to earth to dwell among us, so that He could save us!

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

John 1:14

We see His glory every time we look at creation.  Every time we see ourselves in the mirror and see all the billions of people in the world.  Do you see Him?  He is everywhere!

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

Romans 1:20

Check out these photos of a plane taking off from DIA.  We live between DIA and Buckley Air Force base to the north and Fort Carson, the Air Force Academy, and NORAD to the south, so we see commercial and military flights every day.  Sometimes the fighter jets fly so low they shake the house.  This flight looks like it’s taking folks to warmer temps for Christmas.

Quick story I haven’t talked about on my blog yet.  On July 4, 2012 (just a couple months after I stopped breathing and came back to life) we had an F-22 Raptor fly right into the open space behind our house.  Many of you know we live in a big gulch, like a small valley, above our town, and pilots love flying over this area.  We have lived here for 13 years now and we have seen pilots doing stunts, fighter jets and choppers practicing maneuvers, and even the occasional hot air balloon.  The open space behind our backyard is actually a perfect wide open area several hundred yards long, so it probably looks very similar to an air craft carrier to a fighter pilot.

I heard a jet flying really low that day, so I stepped outside on the back deck.  As I walked outside, a fighter jet flew right over the top of the houses at the east end of the open space, then the pilot just stopped and hovered about 15 feet above the ground right behind our house.  I didn’t even know F-22s could come to a stop and hover like that before I saw it happen!  It was so quiet as it just floated there too!  I was on the back deck standing there in awe yelling at my wife to come outside.  I didn’t know it at the time, but she was in the kitchen watching it from the window.

The pilot must have had some kind of emergency to have to perform such a top gun move like that in a residential neighborhood.  I could see him clearly through the cockpit and he was messing with his instrument panel, then he looked over at me.  We have a walkout basement, so our deck is up high and I was eye level with him.  As we made eye contact, I pumped my fists in the air enthusiastically to show him how rad it was to see him.

After that, he turned his jet towards our home, rose above the pine tree on the east side of our backyard and continued right above our back deck barely clearing the gutters on the edge of the roof.  He was so close I could have bounced a ball off the bottom of the jet!  It was incredibly quiet as he just coasted through the air.  The metal was a very unique gray color that looked technologically advanced, and I could see the words and markings on the side.  When he was about 30 feet above our house, he throttled up and shot into the sky.  It was so awesome!

And no, I didn’t get a single picture!  I was hurting really bad back then as I had just been diagnosed with Celiac on January 6th, 2012 and I had gone through anaphylactic shock and survived by a miracle on April 28th, 2012.  I didn’t even think about getting a camera.  I was in pain and I was just mesmerized by the whole event.  It was an amazing gift from God to see that jet on July 4th that year.  I had suffered so much and had years of suffering ahead of me and I felt really blessed to have yet another amazing experience in my life.

I actually sent an email to Buckley Air Force Base explaining what had happened.  I also thanked them for such an awesome private air show on July 4th.  All the fireworks shows had been cancelled that year due to hot drought conditions, so it was awesome to see an American fighter pilot do that on the 4th.  I’m glad he was okay and he didn’t crash!  It’s amazing how precisely close they can get with those jets!  I never did hear back from Buckley, which I understand.  Our military usually keeps a tight lid on things, especially when a fighter pilot makes emergency maneuvers right among a bunch of homes.  At least they have record of my email.  It was definitely one of the coolest experiences of my life!

By the way, Lockheed Martin made the F-22 Raptor and they have a facility just west of here in Littleton where I grew up.  My Dad actually worked for them when I was a kid.  They were called Martin Marietta back then.  I didn’t even know what he did.  All I knew is that he had a security clearance and worked at a building tucked away in the foothills that was guarded by soldiers with M16 rifles.  Many people who grow up here have parents who work for government contractors or are in the military.  My Dad would joke with us and say, “I can tell you what I do, but then I’d have to kill ya.”  I still laugh at that and I still don’t really know what my Dad did.  We just know he trained people.

It’s been a cool Saturday morning and this has been a bit of a different post for me.  I just wanted to share my thoughts as God spoke to me through His creation, and hopefully you enjoyed our encounter with the fighter jet as well.  I pray you all are blessed and encouraged today and the Lord would fill you with joy!  No matter where you are in the world, His creation speaks to you.  The glory displayed in the skies proves to us that there really is a God in Heaven who loves us, and God proved His love for us by coming to earth as a baby boy to save the world.

“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus speaking in John 6:40

Grace and peace to you all and Merry Christmas!