I was intrigued recently by an article in the paper, that was provoked by the Nasa mission to Mars and the quest to find some sign of microbiological life using the Rover Perseverance. The writer {Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times, February 21st} said that, after 50 missions, there is probably not a hope of that happening. He also pointed out that the maths has significantly narrowed, in the search for extra terrestrial life of an intelligent kind in our solar system.
Apparently one of the founders of Nasa’s search for extra terrestrial life thought, initially, that there could be between 1,000 and 100,000,000 possible life supporting planets in the Milky Way, but now the latest work from Oxford University, a couple of months ago, suggested that, because of some bizarre “revolutionary transitions” that have occurred on earth, we are probably alone!!!!
I’m not able to verify the science, and to be honest I would not be too perturbed if God had put an alternative life form on another planet, because He is sovereign and mega creative, and also we would still be the only ones made in His image and saved by His Son. What does intrigue me however, is the desperate quest mankind has to find something, or someone ‘out there!’
May be this is because, if we are all alone in the universe, that is quite a frightening thought. If we are just one human race on the only habitable, but tiny, planet anywhere in the universe, that has to date, been completely unable to share the worlds resources equally, that is sad. If we are a species constantly struggling with greed and power, and which has, in its recent history, quite often been led by those whose behavior threatens the future of the planet and mankind itself, that is scary.
In a bizarre way it must feel lonely and isolated, that given the size and magnificence of the universe, there is no alternative place for us to go, and there is no other greater or more benevolent being to come and rescue us from ourselves. Oh but wait!!! May be there is!!
Today I find myself thanking God that we are definitely, definitely ‘not alone’. There are indeed extra terrestrials and they are called ‘angels’. Furthermore they don’t want to abduct us but they come to help us as we journey through our life on earth. Hebrews 1:14. According to Revelation 5:11 there are myriads of myriads of them, an indefinitely great number, according to the Oxford Dictionary.
Over the last 4,000 years there have been many ‘sightings’ of these beings by a great variety of different people, many of them recorded in the Bible. We also know that they are able to intervene in world events. Passages like Daniel 10:12-14 and Daniel 12:1-3 give us tantilising glimpses into when heaven’s plans invade the plans of men on the earth. So we can definitely thank God that we are not alone
Today however, I can feel an even bigger burst of gratitude rising in my heart, and that is that we didn’t have to spend millions of pounds, and years of research – as in the 2.8 billion dollars spent on the mission to Mars – to find God. The overwhelming truth is that God came into our world looking for us. Put simply He didn’t wait for us to find Him, Jesus came to earth to find us. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi that ‘Jesus Christ, who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being found in human likeness…..humbled Himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross. Philippians 2:6-8.
He wanted connection with us and, perhaps that desire for connection with other life forms is in fact a manifestation of the hunger that God put in man for connection with Himself. Whether or not that is so, join me today in thanking the Lord that He came in the words of Mark Altrogge’s beautiful song :-
You did not wait for me to draw near to you, but you clothed yourself in frail humanity. You did not wait for me to cry out to you but you let me hear Your voice calling me. And I’m forever grateful to you, I’m forever grateful for the cross; I’m forever grateful to you, that you came to seek and save the lost.
P.S. I feel today that I need to add as a post script the last paragraph of Rod Liddle’s article for those who might be interested. It reads:-
‘If we are wholly, entirely alone, what does this suggest to you? An utterly freakish statistical chance that defies understanding, an accident of maths or evolution? Maybe. Or, given the enormous improbability that we are here at all, in this echoless emptiness, the faint suspicion of something divine?’
Absolutely Rod!!
