This Week’s Devotion
“The Space Between The Stars”
“God of wonders, beyond our galaxy, you are Holy”
If the sky is clear tonight, I invite you to sit outside and look up at the stars.
Beautiful aren’t they? Essentially, the stars you are looking at are all part of our galaxy. We sit out on the rim looking in at the approximately 100 Billion stars that make up the Milky Way. That’s a lot of stars. Enough to make you feel kind of small.
Just wait.
In 2003 scientists pointed the Hubble telescope up at a small little blank patch of sky where there weren’t any stars. They looking at the space between the stars to see what they could see beyond our galaxy. Here’s what they found: Right click this link and open it in a new tab or window to see what the Hubble captured: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Deep_Field . Go on, it’s worth it.
That is an image of approximately 10,000 galaxies. They are so far beyond our galaxy that they look like little pinpricks, like dots of color and light suspended in the blackness. With this picture, we’re looking at light from 13 million years ago. It’s the farthest back we’ve ever been able to see.
So, just to sum up. 100 Billions stars in our galaxy. 10,000 galaxies in just one tiny piece of sky between the stars. You can do the math.
That’s right. In the scheme of things, we earthlings are tiny!
We’re tiny, but we don’t act like it. We cry out to God to fix some problem in our lives as if we were the center of the universe. We gripe about our long commutes, or how big our bellies have gotten, or how long it takes to get a degree, or how overwhelming our one world’s problems are, when in reality we’re no more than a speck. A speck on a speck on a speck in this incomprehensible universe.
That’s a hard thing for some of us to accept, how very small we are. But hear this. There’s a difference between being small and insignificant. Our lives are significant because they are lived in relationship to God. What we do on this small planet becomes significant when we do it for the sake of the Kingdom. Every tiny action and thought is part of God’s creation…a creation far beyond our understanding, but fused into every fiber of our being.
When you go out to look at the sky tonight, feel free to ponder all the worlds beyond this world. But there’s no need to dwell on how small we are. Rejoice with awe, instead, at how very big our God is.
Bigger than all the stars…
And all the space between them.
Have a good month,
Mitch
