Space Rocks and Staying on Course

NASA’s DART Spacecraft achieved its aim the last week of September. It was launched November of 2021 and has since been traveling towards its destination, which it finally reached. DART stands for   Double Asteroid Redirection Test. The sole mission of this spacecraft is to crash into  Dimophos (an asteroid in an asteroid belt not far from Earth which is a moon orbiting       another larger asteroid). Neither one poses any threat to our planet but NASA is testing technology that perhaps could be used in the future to save our planet. NASA is  eager to see if they can change the    trajectory of this space rock by having DART smash into it at 14,000 miles per hour.

What does it take to knock you off course. It probably takes much less than a 325 million dollar spacecraft colliding with you? A mere cross encounter with another person          sometimes sets us off course and into a trajectory of which we are not proud. Colliding with unforeseen expenses, miniscule in comparison to the DART budget, can send us careening into asteroids of anxiety. The unexpected in this life is constantly trying to knock us off course.

In the midst of David’s repeated encounters with King Saul who had his own DARTs, they were spears which he used more than once to try to pin David to the wall by running him through,  David prayed to the Lord his Rock.

“The Lord is my rock . . . my God is my rock in whom I take refuge” (Psalm 18:3).

Jesus is the rock that nothing can knock off course. His trajectory is an orbit around our salvation and he will not be moved from that heavenly pattern until it is accomplished. Even space rocks, five hundred feet in diameter, like Dimorphos can be nudged off course, but Jesus will not be moved. Not even a dart as powerful as death can deter him. So David wrote, “The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock. Exalted be the God of my salvation” (Psalm 18:46). 

“Who is God but the Lord? Who is a rock, except our God? The God who has equipped me with strength (Psalm 18:31-32). -Let’s be ready the next time one of life’s surprises attempts to knock us off course; let’s keep our faith fixed firmly on the Rock.

In Jesus, Pastor Mike