How do I feel when I look up at the stars? Small? Insignificant? Invisible? Overwhelmed? Awestruck? Curious? Full of wonder? Full of questions? All of the above and more are the true answer to this question. As I write this, I am thinking it has been far too long since I have taken the time to truly gaze into the night sky and let it work its wonder in my soul. Too often clouds cover the stars or the lights of human civilization dim the vibrance of the ageless lights in the sky.

When I do behold the brilliant beauty of stars filling the night sky full of glittering light, I feel strangely connected, even as the vastness of the stars makes me feel alone, just as each star seems alone in the sky, even while surrounded by billions of other stars. I think how these are the same stars those who lived on this earth long before I got here, looked up and saw every night. Civilizations on earth have come and gone, while these stars have remained constant in their constellations. So constant are they in fact, that sailors navigate by them as they sail the oceans.

I feel connected to loved ones far away, thinking they could look up and see the same stars. I feel connected to ancestors I’ve never met – they would have lived their lives under the same canopy of nighttime stars. I feel especially connected to my Creator as I experience the magnitude and multitude of these heavenly lights. Only an infinite God could create something so expansively unfathomable as a sky full of stars, a galaxy full of stars and a universe full of galaxies full of stars.

It is estimated there are over one hundred billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy. And there are two trillion known galaxies! Average stars in a galaxy? – at least one hundred million. (you do the math, I can’t) I write these numbers but I do not comprehend them. It is more than I can ever imagine. A universe more vast than I can ever know, created by a Creator infinite in being, who has made Himself known. It is too wonderful for words. In Psalm 147:4-5, I read this about Him,

“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.”

That’s what I think about as I look at the sky – that my Heavenly Father calls each star by name and He knows my name, too! That’s the connection I feel. I live in a limitless universe created by an infinite God, a God who has no limits to His understanding, nor to any other aspect of Himself or His being and He knows who I am. Isaiah 40:26 encourages me to experience this connection to my Creator saying,

“Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

God sustains all He has made. He does not lose track of even one star! He does not lose track of me, either. “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10)

The words of Psalm 8:3-9, express how I feel when I look up at the stars in the night sky.

“When I consider 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, the son of man that You care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. . . . O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”

sincerely, Grace Day