Who Am I?

Who are we?  What are we doing here?
In all the wide universe, what is humankind's place?

We sit here in a vast cosmos, sandwiched somewhere between quarks and distant galaxies, on a single planet between viruses and blue whales, and amid all of them, I am transfixed by what we are.  Ants don't care.  Dogs don't care.  Oak trees don't care.  Neither Venus nor Mars cares.  But I do.

I look at myself, feeling the life and strength, seeing what I can do.  By simply living, I influence my world.  I mold, build, destroy.  I grow stuff and I think stuff up. I know power in all of this, flexing and moving, and the excitement at my abilities in this world grows.  My own image casts itself against the great backdrop of heaven and earth, and I cry, "I am woman!"

Yikes.

Then I remember:
What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?--1Corinthians 4:7

For everything I build, God first made the building materials. For everything I grow, God first made the seed.  For every thought, God provides the inspiration.  It is His.  It is all His.

Who am I in the universe?
I am the image, the flesh and blood reflection, of my Creator God.  

I walk with arms and legs that came from His very thought.  I think with a brain, a mind, modeled on His own. I manipulate a world conceived and made from nothing before time began purely from His imagination. 

And this does not make me less, it makes me more.
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them...--Genesis 1:27

Getting Burned

The sun rose red this morning.  It crested the horizon in stunning pageantry, shining with glorious promise, and by its gentle light, I welcomed a new day.

But I would not have found the sun so hospitable from a closer vantage point.

The temperature on the surface of the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  It doesn't glow; it explodes in blazes of fierce fire.  Anyone drawing near would burn up before they got within 3 million miles.

God created the heavens and the earth to display Himself.
Our God brings life and warmth, but at the same time burns white-hot and dangerous.

Our God comes and will not be silent; a fire devours before Him and around Him a tempest rages.--Psalm 50:3

We draw near to Him with warning, but cannot resist His call.
I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.--Genesis 17:1

The sun, now warm and nurturing, now a destroying furnace, stands inexorably above all things, every day reflecting its maker.

The closer we get to the sun, the more we are aware of its power.  Like God, it only seems friendly from a long way off.

I cannot know the sun's physical touch, but I can feel its influence.
To approach would mean death, but to witness and experience is glorious.