How Small Are You?

 I... am pretty tall. When I was in elementary school and beginning of highschool, I use to be one of the shortest kids in the class. Now, much older, I am quite tall and it's fun to say how much I love people looking up to me! (Joke most definitely intended. I am not that prideful). But I do end up taller than most people, so it is not often where I feel small and towered over. 

The last couple of weeks I have been camping out in the middle of my province, quite literally in the middle of nowhere. I love being surrounded by the dense boreal forest and the heavy rock formations of the Canadian Shield. It really is gorgeous and a spiritual event for  me. One particular thing I love is that the campsite is truly out in the bush, and as such the light pollution is very little, if any. The lack of surrounding lights, of course, means that the night sky lights up with the most gorgeous of stars that is never possible in a city. I stayed up until the early hours watching the stars slowly appear, light up the sky, and slowly disappear because of the rising sun. It was a transcendent experience. It was a spiritual experience. 

In those moments of star gazing I once again felt small in the presence of the immensity of this earth and universe. I am but an ant on this earth and the appearing stars and beginnings of the milky way made me truly understand that. 

Then today we get this image released. The image of the largeness of our universe, the first of its kind in regards to clarity and scope. You have probably heard or seen already the image taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is utterly breathtaking. From what I understnad, the lights with the long lines are stars within our solar system, and everything else is its own galaxy.  This is really an old picture because the lights that were captured for the photo took billions of years to reach the Telescope. So, we are looking into the past, and some suggest that we will be seeing pictures of systems from 13.5 billion years ago, some of which reveal the time and nature of the Big Bang. Truly remarkable. Truly humbling. Truly breath-taking. 

The one thing this picture springs up in me is belief and faithfulness. We just have to look at this picture, and then look around us at the tiniest spec of an ant, or  the tiniest of ticks and atoms  and realize how vast, how wonderful, how careful everything has been put together. How can any of this be? How can any of this be by chance? 

The variety, consistency and careful craftsmanship on display everyday but now particularly through this new WEBB Telescope, is just remarkable. The God of our Universe, Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, is the KING the CREATOR of all of this. That he has designed every part of this vast universe is remarkable and I think adds to our very own meaning, and life. It does so because the God who made all of this, the God who made every galaxy and every star, and made the planets, put just as much detail into planning and creating you. He put just as much detail, care and concern into making you as he did the planets and galaxies. So much attention that he even knows the number of hairs on your head (Luke 12:7). Isn't that amazing?  

Pictures like this add to my faith because it reveals to me once again how great, how powerful, how awesome God is in how he has worked, and continues to work in our lives and universe. May we come and stand before  God in awe of his creation and give him his due praise, glory and thanksgiving! 

How Small Are You? Small, but definitely not insignificant.