Beholding The Night Sky

When our daughter was in Junior High School, she made friends with a group of girls from Olney, Texas, a community about forty minutes to the south of us. And they invited her to a function their school was having on a certain Friday night. So, I drove her over, and, when the time came, I went back to get her. As we headed for home, she fell asleep, and I had my thoughts to myself. It was a crisp, clear winter night, and there was a stretch of highway where I noticed there was absolutely no light: no approaching cars, no farmhouse vapor lights, no nothing. It was pitch black. Now, I have always had a little interest in astronomy, and I knew that, on a clear, cold night in the country with no light around, you could see stars that wouldn’t be visible in the city and sometimes not even in the country. I pulled the car into a roadside park, turned off the lights, and, as quietly as I could, I slipped out of the car so as not to wake our daughter. It was cold, and I stood there in the night air shivering, but I didn’t mind. My eyes were lifted up to the heavens, and – I’m not kidding you – it was like someone had spilled a saltshaker on a black tablecloth. For a few uninterrupted minutes, I took in the vastness of the night sky. I was in awe, unaware of the hour, unaware of the cold, unaware of anything…until I heard this tiny voice from the darkness in the direction of the car. It said, “Dad, what are you doing?”

I didn’t tell her at that moment, but I was worshiping…not the stars, mind you, but God. I was worshiping God. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (v. 1). And it’s true, isn’t it? When you and I consider the vastness of the universe, it takes our breath away. We can’t help it. Space is big. Space is huge. And space is the creation of God.