Your Place In Space

I must confess that I am a geek.  Though the term might be considered a negative, its meaning has evolved into one that may even be used pridefully.  And since it might be applied to someone in any one of many fields, I should describe myself as a science-geek.  I actually understand the jokes on “The Big Bang Theory”.  I’ve always been interested in science in general, and astronomy in particular. 

There are numerous references to the stars and space in Scripture, but I love the ones like this passage from Job 38:

“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades?  Can you loosen Orion’s belt?   Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?  Job 38:31-32

Any good astronomer knows Orion – I think everyone should.  And the Pleiades are my favorite; seven stars clustered together.  And the Bear?  That’s Ursa Major, of course, a part of which we call the Big Dipper.  It’s easy to understand why early astronomers thought all the stars revolved around the Earth.  We forget sometimes that we are living on a big blue ball spinning at 1,000 miles per hour while hurtling through space at 67,000 miles per hour around our sun, while the whole solar system revolves around the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, moving more than a half-million miles every hour!  It takes light 100,000 years to travel across the Milky Way and we share this starry spiral with 250 billion stars just like ours.  Let that soak in for a minute.  Feeling small?  It’s enough to make your head spin (pun intended)! 

Unless you’re a geek.  All that math and movement and majesty make me think about our amazing God.   Because He chose this little blue dot in space to play out the events of human history.  No, I don’t believe there are folks like us on other worlds, no matter what the odds.  Because there is only one God who made us, and one Savior for us.  God didn’t just fling the planets and stars into space, He made them for us.  So we would be impressed and amazed by Him.

Some math-geeks at the University of Hawaii famously calculated the number of grains of sand in all the deserts and beaches on earth.  (That’s what math-geeks do for fun.)  It was a big number: 7.5 with eighteen zeroes after it.  But did you ever wonder how many stars there are?  There are 10,000 times as many stars (that we know of) as there are grains of sand on earth.  10,000x.  That’s impressive!  Would you believe there are that many molecules in just 10 drops of water?  God is amazing. 

O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth…when I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him?   Psalm 8:1,3-4

Great question, David!  We are the pinnacle of God’s creation.  It’s not the earth or the stars.  It’s you. 

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.  Psalm 139:14

You were carefully crafted for Him.  The rest of creation was made to impress you.  Did it work?  Tonight, open your eyes to the beauty God made just for you.  Because when you gaze at Orion or the Pleiades, remember that your Father is looking at them, too.

Jacob