“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Stars

While my thoughts and prayers seem to be lifted up continually for Ukraine, I’ve also had several other serious matters on my heart. It can get a bit heavy and overwhelming at times. I heard a story this week that was really helpful to me.

A minister was addressing a group. He held up a large piece of paper with a single black dot in the middle of it, and asked everyone what they saw.  Person after person replied that they saw a black dot. He kept asking what else they saw, but no one had a different answer. Finally, he told them that they missed the most important thing—the large piece of paper.

The message, of course, is that we often get distracted by something “small” and we miss the big things. The Lord used this to remind me of lessons He has taught me the last few years on our unexpected journey. In the midst of the roller coaster ups and downs of trial, He spoke to me over and over again about worship and counting my blessings. When I focus on Him and on all the good things in my life, the difficult things I’m facing get into their proper place—in God’s hands. He’s working in them, and helping me with them. It was such a good reminder. I’m now looking at the large sheet of paper instead of focusing on the little black dot!

I also came across an article that talked about the number of stars in the universe. A conservative estimate puts the number at 200 billion trillion, or 200 sextillion.

That’s 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s a LOT of stars. (I actually found several different totals listed for the number of stars, but this was the most consistent one listed. I guess we really don’t know the true number—only God does!

The Bible says God “counts the stars and calls them all by name” (Psalm 147:4). To put it in perspective, that’s more than 10,000 stars for each grain of sand on earth. I live near a sand covered beach—lots of grains of sand, and lots of beaches on earth, and that many stars for each grain of sand. Put another way, it’s ten times the number of cups of water in all the oceans of the earth.

Just stop and think about all that for a minute. The numbers are utterly mind-boggling. I can’t wrap my brain around them. Soooo many stars, and God has a name for them all! And yet, He is mindful about each and every one of us. He is aware of what we are facing. He cares about every burden we bear. He is with us continually and helping us with what we are going through. He never leaves us, never forsakes us, never gets too busy to help us. He knows the names of those sextillion stars, and He still knows Sally Ann McClung in Cape Town, South Africa. I’m in awe of His greatness. He is definitely the “large sheet of paper” and I’m often just focusing on the little black dot.

Lord, how utterly amazing that You care for us, as small and weak as we are. We bless You!