OUR STAR-BREATHING GOD
Here is one for our Browns fans. The biggest star that we have seen--Canis Major or The Big Dog. If you take our golf ball earth, then this star would be in comparison the size of Mt. Everest. Seven quadrillion earths would fit into it...that is enough golf balls to cover Texas 22 inches deep in golf balls. And God breathed this one too.
Now you want to know what really blows my mind? Between Scripture and Christian tradition, we say that God created this humongous universe out of nothing. It is called "creation ex nihilo" in Latin, I believe: "Creation out of nothing." Either God created the universe out of nothing, or there was something else there with God at the beginning of creation, all before the account of Genesis.
When I first read this idea from a German theologian named Jürgen Moltmann, I freaked. God had to first make a space of nothingness in order to put this universe. Before creation, it was just God. God had to make a space without anything out which God created the universe. It is one of these things that if you think about too much, you feel like you might lose your mind.
This is our star-breathing God. This is how big God is. This is how mighty God is. This is how great our God is. A God of wonders. A God that Psalm 147:4 says has named all of these billions and billions and billions of stars. He knows them all by name. For His words formed them. He breathed them into existence.
Then I am reminded that God knows our names as well. He knows all about us. God knows us better than we know ourselves.