We know the earth is a spinning sphere. But, to the untrained, naked eye, the earth appears flat. Our individual observational range is too limited to tell us otherwise. Of course, pictures taken from rockets and missiles from the late 1940s have proved the wisdom of the adage "Seeing is believing"; planet earth is spherical—as shown by photographs of our beautiful jewel-like orb taken from space since 1969.

Yet most of humanity lives its life as if the earth is flat. We go about our day-to-day business unconscious of our planet's movement as a spinning ball hurtling through space. Though we may sit quietly unaware in comfortable armchairs, we are completing a gigantic sideways somersault once every 24 hours at a speed of 700 miles per hour relative to the earth's axis.

We well know our days and our seasons, but God has so designed spaceship earth with such magnificent stability that we can go through life without much conscious thought of the marvelously complicated mechanisms that undergird our journey. Long before people came to understand the invisible force of gravity that keeps the heavenly bodies in place, a Bible writer wrote that the Creator "hangs the earth on nothing" (Job 26:7). How marvelous are the works of our God!

We scarcely give a thought to the gravitational pulls and counterpulls that keep us on course and enable the normal cycle of the four seasons. We can be thankful we don't have to fully understand the complex astronomical machinery to enjoy the ride. GN