The Man On The Moon

A few days ago, I was hanging out with my quickly, growing up, 9 year old cousin, Lucy. Her and I were walking around at night when she looked up at the moon and said, "The man on the moon is smiling as always!"
I laughed, of course, there is no man on the moon, it is just an optical illusion. I knew she knew that, but why ruin the imagination. "Yes there is the man on the moon. At least he is not frowning!"
      Lucy responded,"Of course he wouldn't be frowning! If he did, the world might just end!" She was actually not far off.
     My mother is reading to us from the book It's Not About Me by Max Lucado.

                                       (Taken from Chapter 1 of It's Not About Me by Max Lucado)

"The moon models our role.
What does the moon do? She generates no light. Contrary to the lyrics of the song, this harvest moon cannot shine on. Apart from the sun, the moon is nothing more than a pitch-black, pockmarked rock. But properly positioned, the moon beams. Let her do what she was made to do, and a clod of dirt becomes a source of inspiration, yea, verily, romance. The moon reflects the greater light.
 
And she's happy to do so! You never hear the moon complaining. She makes no waves about making waves. Let the cow jump over her or astronauts step on her;she never objects. Even though sunning is accepted while mooning is the butt of bad jokes, you won't hear ol' Cheeseface grumble. The moon is at peace in her place. And because she is, soft light touches a dark earth.
 
What would happen if we accepted our place as Son reflectors?"

This automatically made me think of what Lucy was talking about. What if the reason the moon was always smiling, was because it is content in it's life? It must love reflecting the sun. It maybe, wakes up in the morning, shouting how thrilled it is that it can work in helping the sun with taking care of the earth. Now let's say that it decided that it was done with it's work. That it was sick of the sun getting all the attention, and that the moon was stuck with all the hardships. It would give up it's work and never be satisfied, frowning all the time. The world really would cease to exist.

   The same is reflected with our lives. If all we ever do is complain about everything, thinking it will make us happy in the end, will we ever truly be satisfied? We could always go around, all the time, thinking only about what we want. That is the natural tendency of everyone in life, trust me...I very much have this problem. I want the world to revolve around me and only me. I believe it is because I have only lived as me. (I think? I think I would remember if I had lived as someone else!) It makes me think I am the only person that matters. This, of course, is wrong. There are billions of other people out there in the world. In it, I am only one grain of sand on a much larger beach.

 Ok, I have admitted that I have problems with being egotistic. We all do. You have only known you, as I have only known me. We are all "Praise Junkies " as my mother has labeled it.
   Now let's imagine we were like the moon. We can go about our lives smiling that we can live in His world reflecting His light. We can sing throughout the day with JOY that God loves us. Now let's stop imagining, let's really become a reflection in Jesus' universe.

No one said the job was going to be easy. Everyone faces hardships in their love for their God. Noah lived with people taunting him as he built an ark, Moses had to convince a stubborn king to let God's people go, Mary suffered ridicule for getting pregnant. They still reflected God's light, even in the toughest of times. It comes with the job. Still, it is either live life in a shadow of misery and discontent or we take the harships with a smile full of joy! Lucy's father, for instance, my uncle Matt, recently recovered from Leukemia. We had gone to his house to celebrate his birthday with his eight children. Instead of being upset that he was growing older, he was happy just because he had another birthday to celebrate with his family. God gives us afflictions to help us appriciate what we have. If we can all embrace it, instead of push it aside, we too can have JOY.

It's your choice. I myself am on my way to pushing my ego aside and persuing a true reflection of Jesus' light!

-Little Red