Summer starts this week. Officially, that is. In the Northern Hemisphere. According to astronomers, who wait for the solstice to declare that summer is actually here.
For most of us, however, summer had already begun. For school children, summer begins when classes end. For meteorologists, summer begins when June arrives. The Irish Calendar considers May 1 as the first day of summer.
From what I can tell, none of that really matters as far as the weather is concerned. Sometimes it gets hot early in the season. Sometimes it gets hot much later. Men can debate when summer is going to begin, but the truth is, summer will do as it pleases.
Kind of like some of the debates I hear about who God is and what He can/will do. Men debate everything from the age of the earth to the existence of hell. They wrangle over whether God knows the future and whether God determines the future. Some present philosophical questions like: "Can God create a boulder so big that even He can't lift it?"
In the end, though we may be entertained and enlightened by such discussions, none of them will actually change reality. I believe in God and believe that God will be who He is, no matter what men decide. He will act as He chooses. He will do things as He deems best. Nothing I can say or do will change that.
No scientific discovery will change who God is. No theological treatise will make Him any more or less holy. God will be God.
Rather than defining summer, we're better off learning to enjoy it while it's here. Saying "It's not summer yet!" won't make it any cooler, nor will declaring the end of summer affect how things are outside.
In the same way, our job as humans isn't so much to define God as it is to seek to know Him and obey Him. As the old Westminster Catechism states, the chief end of man is "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." That's what we need to be about.
I'd love to talk to you more about how to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Write to me at tarcher@heraldoftruth.org or contact me through our www.hopeforlife.org website.
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