Have you had enough of the heat yet? If so, I bring you good tidings of great joy...we have come to the end of the "dog days" of summer. Now, don't get too excited, there is still yet plenty of August to go and up into September is pretty hot around here most years, too. But there is an end in sight!
The dog days are the hottest days of the year. Why do we call them the "dog days"? It has nothing to do with dogs. It has to do with the star, Sirius, the 'Dog Star', in the Canis Major, or the 'Greater Dog' constellation. I think I'll just call it the Big Dog. Sirius is the brightest star in the Big Dog and it rises and sets with the sun for 40 days each summer, ending near August 11th each year.
According to the Farmer's Almanac, the Romans used to believe that the brightness and heat from the star contributed to the earth's increased heating during this time of year. Of course, we now understand that the increased heat in summer in the northern hemisphere is due to the tilt of the earth and the angle that the sun's rays hit the earth's surface.
There is an explanation for everything. Everything that happens, happens due to reasons. As Christians, we know that God establishes and ordains the beginnings, the means and the ends of all things. Nothing occurs outside of His purview. Gravity existed before we knew of it, as did every scientific law, because God enacted them before He revealed their innerworkings to us.
This leads to the question, what else do we not yet know? Well, I confidently venture to say that there is still yet more that we do not know than what we have discovered up to this point. That is a remarkable thought, is it not? That God has more to show us in the future than He has shown to us to this point! The thought is almost unimaginable!
Maybe in the physical, temporal sense we are tending toward our maximum capabilities? That, God only knows. But in a spiritual, eternal sense, we still yet lack so much knowledge. You see, one day, every human who God has ever made will have that awesome moment when they stand in front of the God of the universe and see Him as He is. In that instant, our knowledge of spiritual things will far surpass anything we have learned up to that point.
The devastating reality for most is that they will, following their encounter with the living God, have an eternity to ponder His excellence and to reconcile that knowledge with their defiance of Him. This knowledge will gnaw at that man without relief and to no end. I cannot fathom the pain of such an existence. It makes me sick to my stomach to ponder it.
For a few, their glorious reality is that they will receive grace to spend their eternity contemplating the excellencies of God in His comforting presence. This knowledge will draw out the deepest of affections and appreciations from within the man who experiences it. I cannot fathom the glory of such an existence. It makes my heart long for it, even now.
For those of us who are in Him, we wait for these "dog days" to pass. And we know that they will. Just as Israel endured 40 years in the wilderness, and just as Jesus endured his 40 days in the wilderness, we must endure our 40 "dog days" in this wilderness, too. And while so doing, we wait until "the day dawns and the morning star rises in (y)our hearts" (II Peter 1:19). We look for the day when -
"...his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light. On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one." (Zechariah 14:4-9)
That day will be the end of all of our "dog days",
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