The One True Center

Daylight comes slowly.  The sun never seems to be in a hurry to show itself on the eastern horizon, but seems content to simply slowly invade the darkness so that what has been hidden for a night once again becomes visible.  The sun creeps when it is invisible beneath the line where sky meets earth and then with a burst of color, it shows itself and everything else that sits quietly waiting for its touch.  It comes slowly and suddenly.  It comes with subdued light and a burst of colors.   And though it never moves, the sun seems to take a journey across the sky above.     

We often speak of the sun moving as if the earth upon which we live is the center of the universe even though the sun is the constant and the earth is always moving around the sun spinning as it goes.  It seems easy for us to live with the illusion that we are the center and everything revolves around us.  Perhaps, that illusion is planted in us when we are newborn babies and everyone around us jumps at every sound which comes from our mouths.  It was surely an illusion embraced by the Garden of Eden couple who made the decision to put their desires at the center of the creation.  The truth forgotten long ago and forgotten even today is that there is only one center and it is not anyone of us.     

As the sun is the center of the creation as we know it, so is God the center of everything which is a part of the created order.  God is the constant.  He is the unchangeable One.  He is the one who brought an eternal light to bear upon a formless darkness (Genesis 1:1-5).  He is the center of all that is and all that is still to be.  In our mind we may think of ourselves as a mountain, but we are actually just a speck.  We are not the center of the universe.  We never have been and never will be.  Such a place belongs to God.