Peeps, Big TVs, and the Lust of the Eyes

I don’t like Peeps-those marshmallow chicks that show up this time of year. They have never tasted good to me. Yet every year I see those beautiful bright yellow, and now blue, pink, and green, creations in sugar springing from the store shelves. With their droopy beaks they say “we are sweet, we are soft, we are quintessential Easter and memories of yesteryear!”

Even their dull chocolate eye-specks say “buy me now and your mouth will thank you!” Thankfully, I don’t have to buy them. My mother-in-law comes through with Peeps, chick and bunny variety, in multiple colors. I select one. I take a bite, anticipating the ecstasy. I admit that the softness of fresh ones is somewhat satisfying [aside-my childhood memory is replete with Peeps with a hard outer crust from being exposed in an Easter basket unknown length of time. There are some who like them "stale" I am told. My mother is one of them. She was willing to make the sacrifice to eat the ones the "Easter bunny" left me.] But then squishy artificial color bomb hits my taste buds and I think “why do I do this every year?” Now, I don’t hate them. I usually finish the one I started, but there is minimal enjoyment and certainly not the ecstasy of which I daydreamed. But they look so wonderful! Sometimes I even give in a second time on another day, hoping, hoping, they will somehow have changed and magically meet my ardent expectations.

So what is it with the lust of the eyes that makes it so violent, so very effective, even when we know it is totally false? How can I be so perfectly content with what I have and in a moment be longing for something more? I pretty much hate TV and yet I see an ad in the paper with a family sitting in the living room and on the wall is a HUGE flat screen TV with a lovely picture of a beach and sunset and I think “wow, that’s pretty cool! too bad it’s so expensive.” What!?! I hate TV’s! How on earth do these thoughts even get into my brain!?! Of course it’s a billion dollar industry to not only capture my thoughts but cause me to act on them. Thanks be to God that my general inclinations are against buying anything and years of practice resisting such urges helps me quench such thoughts very rapidly. But I am continually amazed at what gets past my eye gates. I wonder, what else is zipping through and finding a more unguarded target in my soul? Oh LORD God, strengthen me and defend me against the lust of my eyes, for I desire to do Your will and to abide with You forever!

I John 2:15-17 KJV

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Thanks Breeze!

The deep, water and time all seem to exist at the beginning of the creation story. They appear to be givens almost (Genesis 1:2:”The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”). While I imagine that one can’t have a beginning without time, I would like to point out that it’s not necessarily a given. Special relativity demonstrates that time is simply another dimension, which is why we see time dilations in our universe. I’m not sure what the deep is, but it seems to have a lot of water in it, since God also uses the fountains of the deep when he chose to flood the earth.

On day one, God creates light and then separates the light from the darkness. I believe what we see is not only the creation of light, but also light speed. Light is not instant, as we have learned, and the passage does not make such overtures.

You can look at my previous post for my thoughts on day four.

On day three of the creation account, my Bible states that God caused the dry land to appear by causing the waters to gather into one place. I always thought that was an odd way to describe the raising of mountains and land masses. Upon further reflection, however, it is a much better description of the creation of gravity. I’m not sure what was keeping things together before gravity.

Similarly, day one had both evening and morning even though the sun was not created until day four. I am not sure what light was shining during the day before the sun, but clearly there was light before the sun appeared on day four, since the text states that God created light on day one, and that light delineated morning from evening.

Where I get really intrigued is on day two. Let’s review the text:

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Once my mind was open to God making vast changes to our universe and the laws of physics, I no longer just saw this as God making clouds and the sky, but rather God making space itself. This same expanse is where God places the stars (in verse), so it seems pretty big.

When I shared this with Jess, she commented that there must be a lot of water out there somewhere, and that the water above the expanse could not be rain and the ozone layer because God put the stars between the waters, and the stars are further away than the clouds. I corrected Jess, telling her that the water above the expanse was simply clouds.

After a few days I came to understand, however, that I was not listening to my wife and Jess was exactly right: if the expanse is space, then there should be water at the edge of our universe. Furthermore, the universe has an end.

It seems to me that this is what God did when he refers to spreading out the heavens. People often use that phrase to refer to the creation of the cosmos or stars; however, I find it to be a much greater feat. The creation of space itself is more impressive and challenging than the creation of the cosmos.

Finally, let us consider the consequences of having water at the edge of the universe. It has been demonstrated that the cosmos is not only expanding, but accelerating. That is to say that it is not only moving apart, but being pulled apart. A large amount of water at the edge of the universe may produce sufficient gravity to explain this phenomenon. However, what I find more significant than that is that if the entire universe is encased in a sphere of water, it would mean that we are all living inside one really big snow globe.

After you read it, I’d appreciate any comments or thoughts.