Isaiah 40:25-26

“To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One. “Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.”

I have never studied astronomy but I find the scale of the universe totally mind boggling. Light travels at 186,282 miles per second. That’s fast! But to go on any significant journey into space we too would need to travel at that speed. In one minute we would have travelled over 11 million miles and by the end of the day we would have covered 16,000 million miles. After a year we would have travelled nearly 6 million, million miles. That’s good going but it would still take more than three further years before we reached the nearest stars. No doubt we would feel a great sense of achievement to have got that far, but we would need to keep going for another 20,000 years at the same speed to reach the edge of our galaxy. But even when we got there the journey would have only just begun, because there are more than 200 billion other galaxies to explore. Wow!

I love the fact that we talk of the God of the universe as being our friend and I believe he wants us to do so. But when we gaze at the universe we need to be clear that we are talking about a very special friend – one who we can only approach with total humility, worship and adoration. As we worship God let’s lift our eyes. Let’s look to the sun, the moon and the stars and gasp in absolute amazement that the great God who created it all is willing to enter into a relationship with you and me.

Question

When you think of the vastness of the universe what is your response?

Prayer

Loving God I praise you for your amazing creation. Forgive me that I so easily take it for granted. Please help me to gaze upon it regularly and allow it to become the springboard for my worship. Amen