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Meteor Showers and the New Heavens
BY RANDY
ALCORN
“For
behold, I create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17).
At 2:30
a.m., on November 19, 2002, I stood on our deck gazing up at the night sky.
Above me was the Leonid meteor shower, the finest display of celestial
fireworks until the year 2096.
For
someone who has enjoyed meteor showers since he was a kid, this was the
celestial event of a lifetime.
There
was only one problem: clouds covered the Oregon sky. Of the hundreds of
streaking meteors above me, I couldn’t see a single one.
I felt like a blind man being told, “You’re missing the most
beautiful sunset of your lifetime. You’ll never be able to see another like
it.”
Was I
disappointed? Sure. After searching in vain for small cracks in the cloud
cover, I went inside and wrote these paragraphs.
I’m
disappointed, but not disillusioned. Why? Because I did not miss
the celestial event of my lifetime.
My
lifetime is forever. My residence will be a new universe, with far more
spectacular celestial wonders, and I’ll have the ability to look through the
clouds or rise above them.
During
a spectacular meteor shower a few years earlier, I had stood on our deck
watching a clear sky.
Part of
the fun was hearing oohs and aahs in the distance, from neighbors looking
upward.
Multiply
these oohs and aahs by ten thousand times ten thousand, and it’ll suggest our
thunderous response to what our Father will do in the new heavens as we look
upward from the New Earth.
Just as
we are not past our prime, the earth and planets and stars and
galaxies are not past their prime.
They’re
a dying phoenix that will rise again into something far greater — something
that will never die.
I can’t
wait to see the really great meteor showers and the truly spectacular comets
and star systems and galaxies of the new universe.
And I
can’t wait to stand gazing at them alongside once-blind friends who lived their
lives on Earth always hearing about what they were missing.
Some
believed they would never be able to see, regretting the images and events of a
lifetime beyond their ability to perceive. The hidden beauties will be
revealed to them, and to us.
Those
of us who know Jesus will be there to behold an endless revelation of natural
wonders — likely including spectacular meteor showers that display God’s glory —
with nothing to block our view.
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17).
Randy
Alcorn
(@randyalcorn) is the author
of fifty-some books and the
founder and director of Eternal
Perspective Ministries.
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