Perspective
One of my favorite movies of all time is JAWS. I had never seen this movie on the big screen because it was released when I was ten years old. I finally saw it at the theater a few years back. They brought it back for its 40th anniversary, and Baby took me to see it for Father’s Day. It was spectacular!
When shooting the film, they used a mechanical shark named Bruce. Bruce was approximately 25 feet long, which was well beyond the average white shark (males usually measure about twelve feet long, and females about fifteen feet long). Regardless, that is some massive and scary fish even if it were only ten feet long. I imagine that if there were a four-footer in the water with me, I would walk like Jesus across the surf until I was safely on the beach!
The other day I came across some pictures that put into perspective what a giant megalodon must’ve been like. The image below is of a megalodon’s jaw, with a ten-foot white shark in the middle of it for comparison.
Apparently, the megalodon who owned these jaws was approximately 70-80 feet long. That would mean that this animal was at least seven times larger than the shark hanging inside its jaw.
Change of direction.
When the prophet Jeremiah told the exiles to hunker down and live their lives, the trauma was going to last 70 years (Jer 25). He instructed them to build houses, plant gardens, marry, have kids, have grandkids, and seek the welfare of the city of their captivity (Jer 28). And when the 70 years were up, God would deliver them from the hands of Babylon.
Right on cue, the seventy years ended, and God delivered the people. Did he send a savior? Sorta! It was King Cyrus of Persia, not some Hebrew prophet. God works in some mysterious ways. (2 Chronicles 6, Ezra 1)
We have been exiled from or normal life, including attending church services in person, for ten weeks. Not ten months. Nor ten years, but ten weeks.
If Judah’s exile is the megalodon jaw, our exile thus far would not be the ten-foot-long shark, nor would it be one foot long. Our little shark of an exile would be approximately one inch long. Get the picture?
Now that’s perspective.
I know that eventually, we will be delivered from this exile, but I do not know how long it will take. God is mysterious, and maybe he will send the most unlikely a person to let us return to the promised land to begin rebuilding. Our rescuer might not even believe in God; can you imagine that?
Oh, one last thing…
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