A blogsite of Bible studies, photos, food, coffee, and anything else that piques my interest
God’s glory is over mankind’s! I love mountains and sunsets. We got both out in North Carolina recently where our youngest son move. I didn’t think about it at the time. But I really like how the human creation of shopping is below the clouds, sunset, and the mountains. Our eyes are drawn to the beauty of God’s creation.
This week I’m not sharing any particular photo. Instead I’d like to invite you to consider the images of the heavens. I grew up in the country in central Illinois. We had, as they say, “dark skies.” There was very little man-made light pollution. The benefit of this was the number of stars one could see on a clear night. It was breathtaking. I greatly appreciated it as a kid. However, it wasn’t until after I moved to the city of Chicago where very fews stars could be observed at night that I realized what I’d had on the farm.
Today I live thirty miles outside of Dallas. It certainly isn’t dark sky country. But, it’s also not in the middle of large city. I am able to step outside my house at night and observe the moon, planets, shooting stars, man-made satellites, and my favorite constellations. To the north, I love to watch Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and Cassiopeia rotate around the north star nearly opposite of each other. But, I believe my favorite constellation is to our south. In the northern hemisphere it can be see in the evening/night sky during winter into early spring. It is Orion. Many people learn to identify Orion’s belt. But, if you learn to identify the rest of the constellation, it’s magnificent. One special aspect of this constellation is the star name “Betelgeuse.” It is bright and has a reddish color. It’s hard for your eyes not to be drawn to that star when looking in the southern sky on a clear night.
At the time of this writing it is late August of 2022 and I hadn’t see Orion in months. But, the other morning I woke up extra early to get to work and the sun had not yet come up. As I stepped out the door, there was Orion appearing in the southeastern sky. It may as well have been a friend I hadn’t see in a long time. It stopped me in my tracks and made me smile. It set the tone for the rest of the day. Why? These constellations are a reminder or a testimony rather of something beyond ourselves and our little world. Each of the stars in the constellations are immensely larger than our earth and even our sun (which is a star itself). Each of these stars are millions of light years away from us and each other. Yet, there is an order to the universe and a majesty that is beyond measure or comprehension. And we experience this in constant motion. We are on a spinning globe while rotating around a star and we take it for granted that we’ll get to see Orion again in the evening sky next winter. When we do, it’s so familiar yet so new and awesome.
I can’t help but believe their is a Creator behind it all. If the universe is that awesome, how much more is the One who created it and keeps it in order. These “sky pictures” testify “power, beauty, and faithfulness.”