Sun of God

3 Million men and 600,000 horses on 6/22/1941 initiated Hitler’s invasion of Russia in operation Barbarossa, the nickname of Emperor Frederick I of Germany. This onslaught would prove that Stalin’s foreign minister was correct when he observed, "Ideology cannot be destroyed by force." A tragedy beyond conception unfolded in which almost 27 million Soviet citizens would die in defense of their ‘motherland.’ The horrible toll for the Reichland was almost equally devastating. In contrast to a war of armor, Pentecostal Christian churches preach about garbing the "armor of God." As verbally confused as soldiers positioning themselves on a battlefield, evangelical messengers talk about the process of prayer and shoot off wordy weapons like "see your prayer experience"and experience "prayer gifting" as you put on the "armor of God." The harmless vs. the harmful, words vs. weapons, peace overtures vs. rattling sabers - why has humanity always come down to this futile conflict of the worldly vs. the divine? My answer lies with the sun.

If our sun were much larger or smaller than it is, life on earth could not exist. Because larger stars burn their fuel more quickly, the sun would have burned out already had it been, say, just twice its size. Were it much smaller, it would give out so little heat that the earth would be locked in a permanent freeze, and would be far too cold for any form of life to survive. Conclusion: The size of the sun is just right; without it we are nothing. Inspiration: Time-out for a meditation on the amazing, the awe-inspiriting fact of our Sun as a prayer experience that intuits the futility of war and the necessity of peace with God.