When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.
- Psalm 8:3-5
On Wednesday evening, Lindsey and I loaded the kids into the car at 8:00 PM—bedtime on a normal night—to see some stars. The next morning we’d be ending our brief vacation at Big Bend National Park, and before we headed back to the suburbs, we wanted to see a night sky unpolluted by artificial light. They say you can see more than 2,000 stars with the naked eye on a clear night in Big Bend—the stars really are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas!
Staring up at the cosmic canvas of black dappled with white, thinking about how every one of those specks represented a celestial body millions of miles away, I admired the splendor set before me. But if I’m being honest, the stars were not the most beautiful thing I saw that night. What took my breath away was not the vastness of the universe, but the sight of my kids, decked out in their pajamas, poking their heads through the sunroof while Taylor Swift’s “Never Grow Up” played in the background. For though the universe inspired awe, it was my kids that filled my heart with love.
In the eighth psalm, David similarly reflects on the glory of creation, awed by both its immensity and its intricacies. But rather than making him feel small and insignificant, the universe’s majesty actually elevates his view of his humanity—for, in a cosmos as big as ours, God cares exponentially more about people than he does about stars.
The Bible tells us that God created the universe day by day—the heavens and the earth, then the sky, then the sea and the earth, then the sun and the moon, then the plants, then the animals. But when, on the sixth day, he created people, he did something new—he created us in his own image, endowing us with purpose and power and responsibility. After each of the first five days, he said that what he had made was good. But on the sixth day, after he made people, he said his creation was very good.
It’s
easier for us to admire mountains and oceans and stars than our fellow human
beings. Nature never lets you down; its majesty is always readily apparent. But
what I realized on Wednesday night, what David realized thousands of years ago,
is worth remembering today: as wondrous as the natural world is, you—and your
neighbors—are the ones who fill God’s heart with love.
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