When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place … - Psalm 8:3

Today's Scripture Reading (August 2, 2025): Psalm 8

The stars are not numberless, no matter what our poets might try to tell us. That is probably not a surprise to anyone; everything has a number and a limit. But how many stars you can see, even far from the city lights and with no moon in the sky, might surprise you. If you have good eyesight, on a dark night, you can probably make out about 2,000 to 2,500 stars. Still, that is a lot of stars, and even that number would be challenging to count, even on a perfect night. And almost every single star that we can see with our naked eyes is brighter than our Sun. So, the next time someone comments that there are a million stars in the sky, you have two choices as to how you can respond. You can either tell the person you are talking to that they are in error, or you can recognize the soul of the poet that lives within your friend.

That is not to say that there aren't billions of stars up there; just that most of them are too far away or too small and dim for us to make out. Of course, the universe is made up of more than just stars, whether or not we can see these stellar bodies. It contains dark matter, planets, rocks, asteroids, comets, and a lot of dust, just to mention a few of the things that are hurtling over our heads. Our universe is truly wondrously made. It amazes me when people, often Christians, try to whittle down this masterpiece of God into something that is maybe easier to understand. I spoke with one Christian not long ago who minimized the size of the universe that we can see. (If you are wondering how far we might be looking into space when we look up at the night sky, it is about 20 quadrillion or 20,000,000,000,000,000 miles.) It seemed that my friend was uncomfortable with the story that a universe that size might tell. Oh, by the way, the universe is much larger than that; most of it simply lies beyond the limited ability of our eyes, and even beyond the limits of our best telescopes.

David, on the other hand, seemed very comfortable with the universe at which he could look. To him, it was simply proof of the power contained in the fingers of the God that he served. David also didn't seem to be threatened by the size of what he saw. The truth, as far as David was concerned, was that even though God had created everything that he could see, he was still concerned about David. David understood that God loved him as well as the rest of humanity.

It might be tempting to believe that this is just an example of the typical egocentric thinking of humankind, but the reality is that we have proof of God's love for us. God gave his Son not to save the length and breadth of the universe, but rather to save us from the sins that so easily entrap us. And to ignore a God like that would be a tragedy beyond anything that our best poets could possibly imagine.    

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 9 & 10

Originally Published on April 2, 2016