Nightime Meditation & The Astronomer

January 19, 2008

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" Psalm 8:3-4

This was David's nightime meditation. He had many nights as a shepherd, prior to becomming king, to look up at the panorama and contemplate God, existence, the vastness of innumermable worlds, the circuit of the stars, the glowing moon, and how very small he was. While often, many of us plan evil in our beds, David walked the nights with his sheep and contemplated the Divine Architect. In doing so, it forced David to say, "What is man that you are mindful of him, and that you would even care for such a small being as myself?" This part shepherd-part astronomer ought to be the most two humbling of all occupations. The Bible says that Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth and I would imagine his 40 yrs of sheperding had no small effect in that process. How can one who looks at the stars, gigantic spheres, shooting comets, and the swirling of galaxies, ever be prideful? His very existence is dwarfed everywhere he looks. What a great training ground for Christian humility!

Though David was small in comparison to a vast universe, a small thing is not however, an insignificant thing. One diamond is more precious than a load of rocks. God is mindful of small as well as the great, especially us who are made in His image, who have been given a rational and moral soul after His own likeness. Yet there is a problem.

The Bible answers the question that David posed, "What is man..?" It says that he is a flower that fades, a worm, prideful, enemy of God, and under the wrath of God. Yet, in all this ugliness, God has sent His Son Jesus Christ to restore the fallen image. The stars at night are meant to bring us to a humble place and shrink us as we grow colossal in the estimation of ourselves. We must shrink low in order to get under heaven's doorway. We must think little of ourselves and much of the Savior. By this humility, there will be an exaltation. As stars and moon press upon us from above, they help us fit under heaven's doorway. At the right time, as we beginning to shrink under the realization of our own sin and rebellion, God moves in by granting grace and repentance and we come freely through Jesus at just the right size.