Everything in Balance

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
    their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
    he puts the deep into storehouses. Psalm 33:6-7 NIV.

Everything in its place is my motto. I like my stuff to be put away where I think it belongs. For example; I have a tool cabinet with drawers clearly marked as to the contents. If I see a screw driver laying around the house somewhere, I get frustrated because it should be in the drawer marked, screw drivers. How tough is that to figure out? Everything should be in its designated place because then when I am looking for a screw driver I can find it in the drawer, instead of looking all around the house for the dumb thing.

And so it is with the creation. God has done a remarkable job of setting up the creation in such a way that everything is just where it should be. Take our local star, the Sun. All of the elements needed for life on earth are in the Sun. In fact, there are more elements in the Sun then there are in the entire Solar System. But, God left just enough elements to make our world habitable.

God also made sure that all of the elements that make up the Sun stay in place in order to provide us with enough heat and light to make life on our world possible. The Sun is in hydrostatic equilibrium. That means that the gaseous material is balanced between the gravity that brings it all together and the pressure that wants to push everything away. As a star forming cloud gathers more stuff, it creates more gravity. The higher gravity should cause the material to collapse in upon itself creating something other than a star. However, as gaseous material builds up it creates pressure and that pressure wants to push the molecules away. That would cause the proto-star to disburse. Instead the two forces come into balance, which we call hydrostatic equilibrium. Thus, our Sun stays constant and unchanging, because God caused the cosmic forces at work to be in balance.

The Sun is not the only object in perfect balance in our Solar System. The Earth revolves around the Sun at just the right distance to create just the right amount of heat and light for living things to bask in the sunshine. If we were in the orbit of Mars it would probably be too cold on our world. If we were in the orbit of Venus it would be too hot. What keeps us in our comfortable orbit? Gravitational equilibrium is the answer. Earth is moving at a terrific speed through the cosmos, which should create enough momentum to fling us into the great beyond. At the same time, the Sun’s gravity is pulling us inward towards a fiery death. Both the Earth’s momentum and the Sun’s gravitational pull are in perfect balance to keep us right where we belong.

God has put everything in its proper place in the creation. God has placed everything in perfect balance. Just the way I like it.

God bless you,

Pastor Bill