President Trump announced yesterday that the US will spend $25 billion in initial funding for a “Golden Dome” hemispheric missile shield. Mr. Trump said the project will cost around $175 billion and added that it would be operational by the end of his time in office.
The shield will be designed to block hypersonic missiles, ICBMs, and other projectiles, including nuclear weapons. Crucially, it will protect the homeland from missiles launched from space.
The news comes at a time when, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the US needs to spend nearly $1 trillion over the next ten years on its nuclear forces. Here’s the frightening reason: the risk of nuclear war is higher than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
- China has doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal over the past five years.
- The next crisis over Taiwan could involve nuclear weapons.
- According to the Atlantic Council, “both China and North Korea have increasing incentives and capabilities for limited nuclear attacks.”
- Nuclear power India says it has only “paused” military action against nuclear power Pakistan.
- Russia’s new nuclear weapons doctrine states that Russia could launch nuclear weapons in response to an attack on its territory by a non-nuclear-armed state backed by a nuclear-armed one. It could therefore see an attack by Ukraine, backed by the US, as justifying a nuclear response.
Such massive threats can feel overwhelming. But there’s an antidote to such discouragement, one as close as tonight’s sky.
A million Earths can fit inside our Sun
Brian Cox is a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester in England. He is also the UK’s Royal Society professor for public engagement in science and visiting scholar at the Crick Institute, a biomedical research center in London. He recently recorded a video for Big Think on “the incomprehensible scales that rule the Universe.”
In it, he offers these facts regarding the size and scope of the universe at large:
- A million Earths can fit inside our Sun. The Sun is so large, it would take a passenger aircraft a year to fly around it. And yet he notes that it is “quite a small star.”
- Our Milky Way galaxy contains somewhere between two hundred and four hundred billion suns and is about one hundred thousand light years across. (A light year, the distance light travels in a year, is 5.88 trillion miles.)
- The nearest galaxy to us is the Andromeda galaxy, two and a half million light years away.
- The James Webb Space Telescope can measure light that has journeyed over thirteen billion years to reach us.
- Since the universe is expanding, the place that emitted that light photon is forty-six billion light years away from us now. There’s more universe beyond it; this is just as far as we can see at present.
Dr. Cox adds:
The universe, for all we know, and given the accuracy of our measurements at the moment, might be infinite in extent. And that genuinely is inconceivable.
When we contemplate the size and the scale of the universe and our place within it, which you’re forced to do when you think about the distance scales and the sheer size and age of the universe, then I think it’s very natural for us to tend to come to the conclusion that we don’t matter at all.
In his view, however, we are immortal to the degree that we influence the universe and thus live beyond ourselves. Dr. Cox calls this “a very beautiful idea.”
But there’s an even more beautiful idea to which we turn next.
“Partakers of the divine nature”
The God who made all of that lives in you right now.
The Bible says of Jesus, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Paul adds: “By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16–17).
Now comes the amazing news: “He is the head of the body, the church” (v. 18). This means that you and I are Jesus’ “body,” inhabited by his Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19; 12:27). We are “partakers of Christ” (Hebrews 3:14 NRSV) and thus “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). As C. S. Lewis noted, “The whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts.”
Take a moment to consider that fact. Reflect on the reality that the One who created every molecule in a universe too large for human comprehension is so omnipotent that he can reduce his infinitude to become a fetus in a mother and a baby in a manger. If you believe that Jesus came at Christmas, you should believe that he came again when you invited him to be your Lord and now lives by his Holy Spirit in you today.
This does not mean that you will be protected from the consequences of living in this fallen world. Missile shields and all the rest attest to the sinfulness of humans who would destroy humans and the finitude and frailty of our lives on this broken planet.
But it does mean that Jesus can empower us to face all that comes to us today with triumphant faith. We can testify with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, my emphasis). If we will submit this day to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and ask our Lord to redeem all that he allows in our lives (cf. Romans 8:28), we will discover that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37; note the present tense).
“Instead of bondage, liberty”
So name your greatest fear today, then claim your Father’s promise: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God” (Isaiah 41:10). Pray with David, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (Psalm 56:3). And know that the God you trust is living in you right now, giving you all the strength you will receive and leading you whenever you will be led.
The great missionary Hudson Taylor testified:
“Christ liveth in me. And how great the difference—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.”
Will you claim this “restful sense of sufficiency” today?
Quote for the day:
“We cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s missing is awareness.” —David Brenner
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