Psalm 147:4

Psalm 147:4

The One who can name all the stars!

At 4.00am this morning, (I’m writing this in midwinter) I awoke and noticed how much light was shining through cracks in the curtains. I had a brief look outside and the moon was full and almost dazzling to the eye. I was not wearing my glasses so was astonished to note that there were many stars visible, in fact the entire sky was peppered with these pinpricks of light. It was a memorable moment! Apparently, we humans can see a few thousand individual stars with the naked eye, (fewer without specs) a half decent telescope will reveal millions more. Can we count them? The answer is, “no!”  Stars are not random; they are gathered together in clusters called galaxies. Our sun is a star in a galaxy called the “Milky Way” which contains around 100 million stars or suns. Beyond the Milky Way are millions of other galaxies! So, the task of counting stars is pretty pointless, it can never be more that guesswork.

And yet! And yet, this book we are studying, that we call the Bible, was dictated to men by a God who knows the number of the stars and has given each one name. Imagine how powerful and great a being God must be to achieve such a feat, to count and name the stars, even the most powerful of modern computers cannot calculate the endless suns that twinkle and flicker across the night sky. To be honest, it’s all too much for our finite, human minds, all we can say is, “Hallelujah!” 

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