Reflected light

I remember a night, many moons ago.  Our team of 3 guys had climbed up in the hills above Montrouis, Haiti, to a place called Kournol.  It was my first time in the tropical mountains under a full moon.  It was so bright—Randy was out reading by moonlight.

But as bright as that moon was, it’s nothing compared to the light from its source, the sun.  For the moon only reflects a small portion of the light from the sun.  So even under the most optimum conditions, I would not want to try to do things like driving by moonlight (unless I was going really slow) or doing something like embroidery.

Here in northern Thailand, the air is seldom clear enough for the moon to be anywhere near as bright as what I experienced that time in Haiti.  In the rainy season the moon is obscured by the clouds and in the dry season, smoke and smog dim the its light.  Though there was that day last week—the day before the eclipse—when the haze wasn’t too bad and I was able to capture a great photo of the moon (wish it was so nice the day of the eclipse.)

Almost full moon the day before the eclipse

Trying to understand God can be like trying to do delicate embroidery by the Hazy moon of Wiang Kaen.

Hazy view of the moon coming out of the eclipse

Paul writes:  Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT) 

I’m grateful that God is a God of revelation.  He has revealed Himself through His creation (Romans 1:19, 20), through the prophets (Hebrews 1:1) and ultimately through His Son, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:2).  And I’m grateful for all those who faithfully recorded the activities and prophecies and words of God in the Bible.  So there is a lot we can know about God.  Still, even with the Bible there is so much I don’t know about Him.  Not only don’t I know a lot of things about God, I am incapable of it.  And so, like Paul, I look forward to that day when I will see God face to face.