THE
WEIRD ORBIT OF MERCURY

Topics: Doubt; Mysteries; Promises; Purpose; Questions; Suffering; Trust; Understanding

References: Proverbs 3:5; Romans 11:33–36

Physicists had scratched their heads for some fifty years over the unexplainable orbit of the planet Mercury. Newton’s theories of gravity had served well for centuries to understand the orbits of all the other planets, but in Mercury’s elliptical orbit, the point nearest the sun drifted by a small amount. Astronomers conjectured that another small hidden planet, which they named Vulcan, might be orbiting the sun and exerting gravitational force on Mercury. But Vulcan was never discovered.

Then Albert Einstein formulated his general theory of relativity. When he applied this gravitational formula to the eccentric orbit of Mercury, the numbers fit. Mercury was a mystery no more.

On occasion my life has an orbit, which, like Mercury, defies my best efforts to explain it. Nonetheless, as surely as there is order in the universe, there is a heavenly reason for my circumstances that is utterly consistent with God’s Word and character. I just cannot understand it yet.

—Craig Brian Larson, Pastoral Grit (Bethany, 1998)