God of the Moon and Stars

By Graham Fuller

One of the things that always amazes me is looking at the night sky on a cloudless night. It never fails to leave me feeling awestruck as I reflect on all the countless stars and galaxies I can see. On my ‘bucket list’ is to stay in a ‘dark sky’ location where there is no light pollution and just sit and wonder.

Seeing all this draws me to the words of Psalm 8 verses 3 and 4. The Psalmist writes ‘When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them.’

Verse 5 continues, ‘You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.’ All this seems to suggest that in Gods eyes we’re pretty special, right! But sometimes this is not the reality we see.

But in the beginning, when God created all things, the bible tells us that after creating each day God looked and saw that it was good. However, after creating human beings God looked and saw that it was very good (The sixth day). There we go again we must be something special. The bible also tells us that we are made in God’s image, but before we get too full of self-importance let’s look at how we behave toward each other.

Whenever I am surrounded by nature, mountains, hills, woods, streams and all the other beautiful things that God has made for us then I find it very easy to see and recognise God in all his handiwork but somehow this doesn’t seem to extend to other people that are around me in the same way.

Is this your own experience?

One of my favourite Psalms is 139 in which verse 14 says: ‘I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.’

If all people are made in the image of God, then it’s true to say that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made and as such we need (especially me) to try to see God in all the people we meet no matter who they are or where they’re from.

Even though we are all made in God’s image the amazing thing is that he makes us all different, we are all unique. The colour of our eyes, our hair, our noses and our lips are varied and our fingerprints are unique. Not only these things but the journeys we take through life; God has a plan for us all and they are not the same but as we grow, we will meet different people in different places and these situations are exclusive opportunities to share our faith and also the love of God.

I was reminded of this recently when listening to the words of a song by a Christian artist by the name of Paul Field…

God of the refugee, God of the prisoner and the free, God of our doubt and certainty, I come to you.

God of the wounds we bear, God of the deepest dreams we share, God of our unspoken prayer, I come to you.

God of a world that’s lost, God of the lonely cross, God who has come to us, I come to you.

We are all different but we are all struggle through life being subject to the same human emotions and fears; we all carry the scars of life and we are all loved by the same God and each one of us can know him in a very real way in our lives.