"For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:11).

This beautiful verse is one to remember. The Lord Jesus is "the light of the world" (John 8:12) and our wonderful sun—which daily provides the radiant energy to sustain the earth's many systems and processes, including our physical life—should continually remind us of Him. The sun will last forever (Psalm 148:3-6, etc.) but in the holy city where we shall live someday, "the city [has] no need of the sun . . . the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:23).

On this particular date, the sun shines longer than on any other day of the year (in the northern hemisphere, that is) and the date is accordingly called the summer solstice ("solstice," from the Latin, means "sun standing still"; the same date is the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere). There was, of course, also that one almost incredible day during the ancient conquest of Canaan by the Israelites when "the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day" (Joshua 10:13).

The God of creation, the Lord Jesus Christ, even now upholds the sun which He created and controls by the "word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). He also is our personal sun, for "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). He can indeed "give grace and glory" to those who "walk uprightly." In that glorious age to come, it is promised that the physical sun "shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended" (Isaiah 60:19-20). HMM