Did you know how critical it was to time the landing of the astronauts on the moon? It had to be done as soon as the sun was starting to come up so the craters and boulders would cast their shadows to enable Neil Armstrong to find a smooth surface to land the lunar module. They had missed the landing site by about 4 miles. He finally found a safe spot with only 15 seconds of fuel left.
Did you know why we only see the same side of the moon no matter what time of the year it is and no matter where you live on the earth? That’s because the time it takes for the moon to rotate on its axis is the same amount of time it takes to rotate around the earth. It’s called tidal locking.
It’s hard to believe that even though our moon is only ¼ the size of earth and is 239,900 miles away, its rotational and orbiting timing has an enormous effect on our weather and ocean tides, which are affected by the gravitational tug from the moon and sun.
Since the earth takes 24 hours to complete a rotation, it’s hard to fathom that it needs to spin at 1,000 mph to accomplish that. If it spun at twice that speed and our days were only 12 hours, you would have a plot for a disaster movie. The centrifugal force would pull hundreds of feet of water toward the equatorial region and everything there would be flooded except for the highest mountains in the Andes.
When you consider all the conditions that are necessary for life to exist on a planet, such as just the right distance from the sun so we don’t fry or freeze and a protective atmosphere to shield us from its radiation, and water needing to be not too cold or too hot so it doesn’t freeze or vaporize, it’s very hard for me to believe that all those things just happened by chance.
Why is our planet an ideal place to live compared to the moon, where the temperature varies from 224° during the day and -298° at night? That’s another reason the astronauts wanted to land before the sun had risen to a point that it would overpower their liquid cooled spacesuits! The oxygen level on the planet Mars is only 1%. Venus is the same size as Earth but has a toxic atmosphere full of carbon dioxide and is covered with yellowish clouds of sulfuric acid. At 850°, it’s the hottest planet in our solar system, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun. Finally, only the Earth is covered with water. How did that come about?
The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is a very intelligent and powerful Creator who masterfully wove everything together from our incredibly complex DNA to the mind blowing vastness of the universe!
But what is even more amazing to me is that he not only designed our bodies but he also cares about us enough to work out everything in our lives for the best. It doesn’t always look that way and it may not be according to our time table. The writer of Hebrews recounts heroes “who were commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.” (Chapter 11, verse 2). Jesus explained, “Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” (Matthew 13:17).
I am so grateful that I was born after Jesus came to explain the things of God and to offer his life for our eternal salvation and an abundant life until then, even while we go through hardships and disappointments.
The older I get, the more I have come to see that I can trust God to get me through anything until that day when I will see him face to face in a place that will support life forever. I just need to let him take the wheel and let him choose the speed because his timing is always perfect!
To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Dwell in His secret place 