Last night we sat out under the stars. The words I know are not sufficient. The stars were amazing. But even more so was the opportunity to contemplate the imagination, power, and majesty of the creator … the one who put the stars in their places and calls them by name. As my friend nearby said … was it he who put in the mind of man the names of the constellations … because without his prompting we would have struggled with the names of the stars?
The Psalmist said, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? … He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”
The modern-day poet puts it this way:
And often now when my heart is faint
With earth and its wearying care,
When my soul is sick with a feverish thirst
And burdened with contrite prayer,
I hasten forth to the starry gems,
That circle the brow of night,
And track with them the eloquent depths
Of the boundless Infinite.
They whisper low of a holier life
And a faith sublime and high;
And again I fancy each golden beam
The glance of a seraph’s eye,
As in days of yore, when a careless child,
I stole to my mother’s knee,
And asked of the wonderful points of light
That shone o’er the deep, blue sea.
~M. G. Horsford
I don’t want to wait until my heart is faint to consider the heavens, the starry hosts … instead I want to rest beneath the glittering lights and praise my Father in heaven for his magnificence and his glory!
