When I was a young, single woman of not quite 21, I was given the extraordinary opportunity to witness two space launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was May of 1969 and I was a young secretary working in a satellite program office at a military installation near my home in Southern California. When you’ve worked daily for nearly three years closely linked with satellites that will eventually end up orbiting the earth, you come to think of them as “your own.” The opportunity to see them launched was a chance I couldn’t pass up, and so, at my own expense, I traveled to Florida to witness the event.
Coincidentally, earlier in the same week of the satellite launch, Apollo 10, the “dress rehearsal” for the Apollo 11 moon landing, was scheduled to take place. I had been invited by my temporary hosts to have lunch at a restaurant that fronted the Banana River. Across the river was an unobstructed view of Merritt Island, the home of Cape Canaveral (aka Cape Kennedy), where the launch was to take place. As I recall, when it came time for the launch, everyone – patrons and staff alike – stopped what they were doing and joined in the countdown as seen from a local television station: “10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – liftoff! Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff!” What happened next was astonishing. From the distant launchpad, I saw fire and smoke, I saw the rocket with its payload, a space capsule carrying three astronauts, slowly ascend, but no sound! My hosts must have seen the disappointment on my face because they were saying “Wait for it, wait for it.” I had forgotten that light travels faster than sound. Several seconds later, the sonic boom was deafening, the restaurant began to vibrate and then shake, and the plate glass windows facing the river rattled, almost to the point of shattering! I don’t remember what I had for lunch that day. I don’t remember leaving the restaurant. But I will never forget what that kind of power looked and felt like. It was awesome, and frightening in its intensity.
On the day our satellites were to be launched, I was escorted onto the Cape by my military co-workers and taken to the launch control center. I was told that the building we were in was as close as any human was allowed to be to the launchpad during a launch. Again, I found myself in front of a huge plate glass window as the countdown began. This time, however, instead of being separated by 5 or 10 miles and the expanse of a river, I was so close to the launchpad that it seemed I could almost reach out and touch it. I could see the gantry that would fall away as the launch sequence began. I could see the Titan III-C rocket and its boosters, with the twin satellites – the payload – mounted on top.
Even from the perspective of more than 50 years, I will never, ever forget witnessing the staggering demonstration of power: a massive display of fire and energy almost too big to describe, much less comprehend.
Even in my fledgling adult and immature faith, my brain mused over the comparison of such displays of power made by man to the power of an Almighty God. Working in the Aerospace Industry, I was aware that we were only beginning to discover the vastness of the universe. Pictures of the earth from space, taken by earlier manned space missions, had been published by NASA, and the world was transfixed by the beauty of the earth as seen from space. The Bible tells us that God merely spoke and this world, this Planet Earth that we call home, came into being. It is very humbling that modern space telescopes have sent us back pictures of the universe and its galaxies, including the galaxy where we reside, and from the distant reaches of the universe – the universe God spoke into existence – Planet Earth looks like nothing more than a small blue dot, a piece of cosmic dust so insignificant that it can hardly be seen, and yet strategically located near the edge of what we call the Milky Way Galaxy, just the right distance from our sun so that it doesn’t get too hot or too cold to support life. One cannot even begin to imagine the kind of power it took to accomplish that. A “Big Bang?” When I recall the big bangs I’ve witnessed here on earth – this nearly invisible dot in God’s vast universe – I imagine there was a pretty big bang when God spoke and the universe began to sing.
One thing that sets my teeth on edge is to hear someone refer to God as “the man upstairs.” We have become masters at trivializing God, trivializing His interest in us, trivializing His love for us. We attempt to squeeze Him into convenient boxes of our own design. We bring our troubles and anxieties to Him and then proceed to tell Him how we’d like to have them resolved. We plead for healing for ourselves and our loved ones, and then tell Him exactly how it should be done, and quickly, please. Our finite minds have a really hard time understanding and relating to an Infinite God. Instead of acknowledging that we are His creation, made in His image, we have remade Him into our image. Instead of falling on our faces in awe and fear, we irreverently refer to Him as the man upstairs. To get just a small glimpse of what God has to say about Himself, read Job 38 – 42, and try not to shake in your boots while reading it.
Recently a social media post has been making the rounds. It starts out with the usual guilt trip, “Don’t spoil this by scrolling past and ignoring it.” Then it tells you that if you enter “Amen” in the Comment field, you will wake up the following morning and your family will receive a wonderful blessing from God. As if God is now some sort of genie in a bottle or magic lamp, waiting to bless you beyond measure, if only you will type the magic word “Amen” in the Comment line. Instead of an omnipotent God, we have turned Him into a fairytale. And, of course, everyone knows that fairytales aren’t really true. And that’s exactly what Satan wants us to think and believe: God is irrelevant. There is no God; He doesn’t exist. God isn’t interested in you as an individual. You are puny. You are insignificant – a mere speck in the vastness of the universe. God says “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jer. 31:3) Satan fires back, “Did God really say that?”, planting a seed of doubt at every opportunity.
Almighty God, whom Jesus called “Lord of heaven and earth,” is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (always present). He deserves our praise, our devotion, and our unrelenting reverence. He has revealed Himself through His Word; He has revealed Himself through nature; He has revealed Himself through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ; and He has revealed Himself through the work of His Holy Spirit. He took the time to visit us here on this seemingly insignificant speck in His vast universe in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. He made Himself a sacrifice for our sins just because He loves us and doesn’t want to spend eternity without us. Why would He do this if He didn’t care for you deeply? He stands patiently at the door of your heart, gently knocking. Answer the door, my friend. Answer the door.
©Eva M. Allen, 2022