Whenever asked my favorite color, usually during an awkward ice-breaker activity, I answer with “anything you would find in a sunrise or sunset.” That might be cheating the question a bit, but God’s twice-daily masterpiece on the canvas of the sky never ceases to amaze me. The way He swirls the clouds into a blend of gentle cotton candy pink or flaming red is incredible.
David stated it perfectly when he wrote, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1).
Recently, God revealed another aspect of His creation I often overlook. If you’re from an urban area like I am, light pollution often steals this celestial gift out from under us. We’re too distracted by billboards, skyscrapers, or red and blue neon “open” signs to notice the everyday miracle found in the stars.
It was on a recent flight I felt God send a cosmic love letter directly to my heart. If you’re also a habitual window-seat flyer, glancing at the ground below and the sky above provides perspective on just how small we really are and how grand God truly is. Not only does the window seat allow you to view the twinkling city lights and awe-inspiring natural landscape 30,000 feet below, but it also lets you see hundreds and hundreds of stars – each of them known to God by name.
Fearfully and wonderfully
Unless you’re really into science or employed by the space industry, chances are the constellations in your vocabulary are the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and maybe Orion’s Belt. What’s intriguing about these constellation names, however, is that they are manmade titles for masterpieces made by God. He created each of these astronomical wonders, and He holds a special name for them in His heart.
Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing (Isaiah 40:26).
The closest star to the Sun, the central star of our solar system, is Proxima Centauri. Even then, it is 40,208,000,000,000 kilometers away. And yet, we can still see stars even farther away with the naked eye. We see these massive, nuclear balls of gas sustained in the sky. We see the Sun provide heat and light as we rotate around it, yet not to the extent it destroys us all in a fiery rage.
Stars are miracles. They’re God’s cosmic love letters to us.
Not only does He know the estimated one septillion stars in the universe by name, but He intimately and lovingly knows us by name. He knows our hearts, worries, passions, personalities, insecurities, gifts, and futures. He knows everything there is to know about us – all of our fears and failures – and He still loves us. He still pursues us. It’s indescribable.
In the low light pollution days of ancient Israel, I imagine David spent time out in the fields while shepherding his flock or later on the roof of his palace admiring God’s handiwork in the sky.
As he writes in Psalm 8:3-4,
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
David also wrote in Psalm 147:3-4 that,
He heals the brokenhearted
And binds up their wounds.
He counts the number of the stars;
He gives names to all of them.
Before describing God’s omniscience in knowing all of the stars by name, David reminds readers that God heals the brokenhearted. He thinks of us with delight. He desires a deeper relationship with us, and He wants us to rest in the refuge of His strength.
The greatest love story of all
It’s perfectly fitting God announced the arrival of the greatest love letter of all with a star. As God sent His Son, Jesus, to be born in a stable, He announced the incarnation with the most beautiful, majestic, glorious star we could ever imagine. It was a star miraculous enough to stir magi from their homeland to traverse the desert and worship at the feet of a baby. It was a star perfectly guided to rest above the One who made it (Matthew 2:9).
Stars are just one of the cosmic love letters God has addressed to us. He’s given us countless more – the whisper of the wind through the trees, the joy of laughter with a friend, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee on a Saturday morning.
It’s His indescribable and unstoppable love that propels us to look more like Him, to love His people, and to set our eyes on eternity in heaven.
