September 23, 2017
Look up and Count the Stars
Come! Let’s bow down and worship! Let’s kneel before the LORD, our Creator!” Psalm 95:6
I will never forget the day…
Our five year-old daughter was learning to read real words on her own and she loved sounding-out words in her children’s Bible. She was propped up on her bed, with her Bible, as I hurried to my bathroom to start the water for a quick bath, thinking she would stay busy for at least a few minutes…But, moments later, she dashed in with the most incredulous look on her face as she shouted, “MOM…Did you know that God made the whole world? Every Single Thing!” She began to enumerate everything she had discovered in Genesis. And, I am certain…On that day, her belief was born. She knew within her own little child’s heart that God, the Creator and Author of Life was real, and that His Word was true. Of course, who can argue with Creation…the sun, the moon, the stars created by Elohim…the Supreme God! And, I remember the stir in my own heart as God’s Truth was imparted to my child on that day, etched into her little heart, a heart forever changed.
Years before, God had used Creation to show His Glory and His Majesty to me. I was a high school student who wrestled with the voices of the culture in which I grew up in during the sixties. But I remember the moments of looking into the beautiful night sky and trying to count the stars…one by one…the impossibility and the vastness. And then, the realization that this same sky and the same stars were the ones Jesus looked at when He lifted His eyes to Heaven. They were the same stars upon which all of humankind affixed their eyes and no one, no one, except the Creator could count them. But of course He could…He is the Creator and the Author of Life. And, God brought me one step further on my long journey to belief and to abandonment to Him.
…And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them…”And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Genesis 15:5
Generations ago, God called to a man, calling him out of a pagan culture, maybe something like the culture in which I found myself as a teen…and He led him, and guided him to a place of intimate relationship. The LORD God took Abram outside, and instructed him to lift his eyes and to look to the heavens. And the voice of God spoke, instructing him, “Count the stars, if you are able…” And something stirred in Abram’s heart as he looked into the heavens and gazed at the vastness and the multitude of stars…Belief was established and confirmed in the heart of this man who would be the patriarch of God’s Promise to humankind.
“Then he believed in the LORD…” Genesis 15:6
Yes, Almighty God spoke, He commanded, He created everything with you in mind and He placed each star, one by one, in the heavens for you to experience, to admire, and to count…and count…and count…And someway, somehow…the Creator and Author of Life plants the seeds of belief in the hearts of His people as they stand in absolute awe and wonder of His Creation. That is the way of Almighty God with His people.
Oh my friends, may we never take God’s handiwork for granted. May we stand in awe at the work of His Hands, and may we stand amazed, at Him, and the intention of His Heart toward us. May we always teach our children and our grands to look up…to count the stars, and may we remember to LOOK UP, to count one, by one, by one. You see, I have learned, when we count the stars, it is like counting our blessings one by one…so vast, incomprehensible, so amazing!
Abundant joy and blessings,
