Read: Psalm 8
When I look at your heavens . . . the moon and the stars . . . what is man that you are mindful of him? (vv. 3-4)
We caught fish all day on the river, then camped for the night along the shore. It was a clear, cool night, and there was only a sliver of moon. Gazing up at the heavens, a billion diamonds scattered on black velvet, I became dizzyingly conscious of God’s enormity and my insignificance. I couldn’t help but think, “Who am I, compared to all this?” “When I look at your heavens,” says the psalmist, “the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars . . . what is man that you are mindful of him?” And yet God is mindful of us. Indeed, the psalmist proclaims, we are just a little lower than the angels, and we are given dominion over creation. The mind reels.
Surely one of the most salutary activities of life is to go outdoors after dark and gaze up into the heavens. The same God who flung those stars into space at the dawn of creation is your loving heavenly Father. What problem of yours is greater than him? What anxiety can he not calm?
“The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the psalmist, “and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (19:1). Go outside and see for yourself. —Lou Lotz
Today’s Activity: Go out after dark and look up at the stars. Share a little starlight wonder by cutting out and decorating a star to hang in your window. Find a template at www.woh.org/AdventCalendar.
About the Author
Rev. Lou Lotz is a recently retired Reformed Church pastor. Lou and his wife Mary Jean live in Hudsonville, Michigan.
