“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority— the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!” Psalms 8:3-9 NLT
King David’s magnificus opus, written in his younger poetic stage of life, when creativity is at its highest expression, was inserted into the Psalms towards the end of his life. In this Psalm David captures the unbridled beauty in all of creation. “When I look…”
When was the last time you simply looked up at the night sky to behold the wonder and majesty of the heavens above? I live in an overexposed, light polluted area of California, so it’s almost impossible to see the bazillions of stars that fill our expansive universe. A quick trip to our desert or our mountains opens up a cornucopia of dazzling sparkles suspended in pitch black heavens.
Even more arresting is the comparison of just how big the firmament above us is to how minuscule we really are. It can be frightening to think about. There are 8 billion humans on this spinning globe and 200 billion trillion stars in just our own universe! David asks the only appropriate question when digesting such a dilemma. “Who are we (mere mortals) that you should think about and care for us?”
God created us. God crowned us with glory and honor. God gave us charge and authority over all creation. WHY? For sure we are NOT like the rest of creation, as amazing, inexpressibly beautiful as it is. We are more, by a scale of infinity! Because God put in us His own image, His own essence. We are like God, but we are not God.
The challenge, the resolution this first day of 2025, is to find a dark sky tonight and just look up. Look up and gain David’s poetic perspective. Whatever number of stars you may see, imagine multiplying it by millions. Allow yourself a moment to realize how small we really are and how marvelously ginormous God is! Now, think about this, we may be small but we are not insignificant. We may be weak, broken from the weight of our own sin and selfishness, but we were created by and for our eternal God, one God with no other gods before our after Him. That God knows us, loves us and made us for so much more. I join David’s crescendous refrain, “O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!”
Prayer
Dad,
I, like David, often feel so small, so unable, incapable of doing enough good to change the overwhelming chaos of these cultural moments. But when I look up and see Your majesty displayed in an array of brilliance in the innumerable stars that shine above me – it reminds me. I maybe small, but I am not insignificant. I am made and loved in Your image. You have charged me and given me authority to do Your good will here on earth. Amen.