It’s in the stars
29/11/07 16:59 Filed in: Musings
The basic fundamental message of your existence is to be found in the stars. No – not your horoscope; the shiny little dots up in the sky. For centuries people have tried to read the stars, to read meaning and significance into their constellations, and movements.
When was the last time you stood and gazed at the stars?
The other evening I found myself outside in the cold clear crisp moonless night. Above me with startling clarity, scattered across the vast dome of the night sky were thousands of tiny pinpricks of light. I had seen the stars before, I had stood and gazed at them and been amazed before, but this time was different. Was it the number of the stars, was it the stillness of the night, was it that I could see the shimming dust cloud of the Milky Way stretched out in its band across the heavens? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I know in my head that these aren’t tiny pinpricks of light, but immense orbs of flaming light, many times bigger than our sun, and that as we gaze at them scattered across the dome of the night sky that it is not a dome of sky above us, but the vastness of space in which these colossal giants hang. Perhaps.
All I know is that I found myself standing gazing upwards for a long long time. The vastness of the universe struck me with a new force. My smallness in the face of such infinity.
The Bible sums up this glorious masterpiece in five simple words, almost a ‘by the way’ tucked into the account of creation: “He made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16).
So what do they tell us?
Author John Piper answers this question: “God made the universe so big and man so small to tell us something about himself. And he does so because he wants us to learn and enjoy the truth that he is infinitely great and powerful and wise and beautiful. The more the Hubble Telescope sends back to us about the unfathomable depths of space, the more we should stand in awe of God. The disproportion between us and the universe is a picture of the disproportion between us and God. And it is an understatement.”
The stars tell us that we are very small indeed. The stars tell us that there is a being out there who is infinitely great. The stars tell us that our significance can’t be found within us, but only in a relationship with the being who created everything, including the stars.
That’s what we need to know from the stars – if you find your ‘stars’ telling you that you can find a significance without any reference to the One who made the stars, then there is something wrong.
www.newlifefellowship.ie
When was the last time you stood and gazed at the stars?
The other evening I found myself outside in the cold clear crisp moonless night. Above me with startling clarity, scattered across the vast dome of the night sky were thousands of tiny pinpricks of light. I had seen the stars before, I had stood and gazed at them and been amazed before, but this time was different. Was it the number of the stars, was it the stillness of the night, was it that I could see the shimming dust cloud of the Milky Way stretched out in its band across the heavens? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I know in my head that these aren’t tiny pinpricks of light, but immense orbs of flaming light, many times bigger than our sun, and that as we gaze at them scattered across the dome of the night sky that it is not a dome of sky above us, but the vastness of space in which these colossal giants hang. Perhaps.
All I know is that I found myself standing gazing upwards for a long long time. The vastness of the universe struck me with a new force. My smallness in the face of such infinity.
The Bible sums up this glorious masterpiece in five simple words, almost a ‘by the way’ tucked into the account of creation: “He made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16).
So what do they tell us?
Author John Piper answers this question: “God made the universe so big and man so small to tell us something about himself. And he does so because he wants us to learn and enjoy the truth that he is infinitely great and powerful and wise and beautiful. The more the Hubble Telescope sends back to us about the unfathomable depths of space, the more we should stand in awe of God. The disproportion between us and the universe is a picture of the disproportion between us and God. And it is an understatement.”
The stars tell us that we are very small indeed. The stars tell us that there is a being out there who is infinitely great. The stars tell us that our significance can’t be found within us, but only in a relationship with the being who created everything, including the stars.
That’s what we need to know from the stars – if you find your ‘stars’ telling you that you can find a significance without any reference to the One who made the stars, then there is something wrong.
www.newlifefellowship.ie