Showing posts with label wonder of creation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wonder of creation. Show all posts

Tuesday, 1 October 2024

The heavens declare the glory of God


Psalm 19: 1 – 4

The heavens declare the glory of God;

    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;

    night after night they reveal knowledge.

3 They have no speech, they use no words;

    no sound is heard from them.

4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

    their words to the ends of the world.

I was meditating on these verses and wondering how the heavens, the stars, galaxies pour forth speech but verse 4 gives a clue; despite there being no speech or sound their voice goes out into all the earth.  But how?

In our light polluted heavens, we can easily lose connection with the sky that David, the psalmist saw. I only once saw anything like that in the Namib Desert in Namibia. I long to see it again. It was stunning. 

There were no human lights, and the sky was ablaze with stars, planets and all sorts of things that I have no name for. It was almost overwhelming. Words completely fail me. It was so bright, so incredible, so majestic, so marvellous you literally felt you could reach up and pluck a star from the heavens. There was not even a tiny space that was not flaming with light. 

Looking at a night sky like that, you can completely understand what David is writing about. Only an awesome Creator God can fashion that sky. If that is what the Creator created, what does that say about the Creator? The heavens do indeed declare the glory of God. 

Though the heavens have no language, no speech, no sound, their voices shout aloud of the magnificence of the Creator. The heavens reveal knowledge that Man is struggling to get to grips with.  Thousands of years after King David penned this psalm, with all our technology, space travel, high resolution telescopes we are only just beginning to realise the vastness of the universe. The Hubble telescope estimates there are 2 trillion galaxies, but astronomers are by no means convinced that they have discovered all there is.


Pillars of Creation - a cloud of gas and dust

I love those photographs that a deep space probe has sent back to Earth – extraordinary sights – unimaginable vistas. Clouds of gas and dust sculpted into astonishing shapes.  

My mind is in a spin – I cannot begin to compute anything of that magnitude. Even thinking about the 6,000 or so stars that can be seen from Earth requires a brain stretch on the edge of my ability. 

David is correct - Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. The sheer magnificence of the night sky shouts out to anyone, anywhere on the Earth below – there is a God, an awesome Creator God and everyone, everywhere on planet Earth can see and hear the song of the stars. 

All glory to God.




 

Friday, 10 February 2012

When I consider your heavens

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and 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?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
And crowned him with glory and honour                               Psalm 8: 3 – 5

I can imagine David staring up at the moon and stars, marvelling at the beauty of the Milky Way and was blown away that the Creator of this beauty knew and cared about him.  Have you ever stood under a really dark, clear, night sky away from all the light pollution of our cities and towns and like David marvelled at the incredible beauty of the starry host?  It is truly amazing!

Today there are radio telescopes that can pick up images from farther and farther away in space of the most awesome ‘clouds’ of stars and planets.  If man were to travel to the edges of what is the known universe, it would take thousands of light years.  Yet there is so much more – all created by our God. 

Like David it makes us think, 'what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?'  The phrase ‘mindful of'’ literally means remember and remember does not mean call to mind something that is forgotten  but rather to express concern for someone and to act with loving care towards them.  So when we think we are just one of billions of people on a minute planet of a tiny solar system in a corner of a small galaxy and wonder if we matter?  The answer of course is ‘yes’.  We are loved so much that the Creator of all that we marvel at, sent his own son to die for us so we can know him and spend eternity with him. 

When we gaze up at the heavens, we can be overwhelmed by the greatness of our Creator God and feel so insignificant.  God however has graciously made us in his own image to rule over creation on his behalf. We are not to exploit, waste or spoil the creation but to care for and use it for God’s glory and purpose.  What a privilege it is to be one whom God considers and is mindful of and as David said, God has crowned us with glory and honour. We are not an insignifcant dot in the vastness of space but a treasured and valued child of God.