The beautiful Messier 81 galaxy
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
JC's Weekly June 1st 2005
I was thinking today about the magnificence of God. Contrast this with the "mannishness of man" as Francis Schaeffer said. In my contemplation, I began thinking about the universe. Because I am not a scientist, I am limited in my ability to understand as much as I'd like to, but fortunately, there are some friendly scientists who have helped me. For example, there is the beautiful whirlpool galaxy pictured on my blog's opening page.
When we think of the universe, we tend to make our observations earth-centric. This is natural, but not a good idea. (When we think of our lives, we often think of them as "me-centric", which is also a bad idea) Perhaps some numbers can help?
According to the Sloan Digital Survey astonomical site, there are approximately 10,000 billion, billion stars in the visible universe. http://cas.sdss.org/dr3/en/proj/advanced/hr/
I have done some rudimentary calculations and if we say that 96 billion people have lived on the earth at some time, this means that each person that has ever lived could have somewhere around ten trillion of their own stars!
Some European fellows have discovered a group of stars called "Redshift 10" which are the farthest known observable objects in space. These stars are 13.2 million light years away. This means that to see them on earth, the light they emit left them 13.2 million years ago!http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-04-04.html
Now the really awesome part of God's universe is that we can only see about 4% of it because most of it is dark! We see stars, because they emit light. But we cannot see most planets, or black holes or other objects because they do not. Now, if we KNOW that there are somewhere around 10,000 billion, billion stars and these represent only about 4% of what there really is, well, you get the idea. God's creation is unimaginably vast.
And it is unimaginably creative and beautiful. If we look on the ocean floor at giant tube worms, we see these worms and some species of shrimp which live in environments that are unbelievably hostile. These creatures live in a solution of hydrogen sulfide which would kill any other living thing. they also live in temperatures which would melt steel. And yet they live and thrive just where God put them.
In the Bible book of Psalms, verse 104, the Psalmist wrote; "Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, You are very great:You are clothed with honor and majesty, Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain."
When we look at the universe we can see the majesty of God, in brief. We could not survive a true glimpse of the full majesty of God. But one day, when Jesus Christ comes to take His followers with Him into His eternal kingdom, we will be able to not only see, but interact with the God who created us and His universe.
I am excited about this coming day. Are you?
When we think of the universe, we tend to make our observations earth-centric. This is natural, but not a good idea. (When we think of our lives, we often think of them as "me-centric", which is also a bad idea) Perhaps some numbers can help?
According to the Sloan Digital Survey astonomical site, there are approximately 10,000 billion, billion stars in the visible universe. http://cas.sdss.org/dr3/en/proj/advanced/hr/
I have done some rudimentary calculations and if we say that 96 billion people have lived on the earth at some time, this means that each person that has ever lived could have somewhere around ten trillion of their own stars!
Some European fellows have discovered a group of stars called "Redshift 10" which are the farthest known observable objects in space. These stars are 13.2 million light years away. This means that to see them on earth, the light they emit left them 13.2 million years ago!http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-04-04.html
Now the really awesome part of God's universe is that we can only see about 4% of it because most of it is dark! We see stars, because they emit light. But we cannot see most planets, or black holes or other objects because they do not. Now, if we KNOW that there are somewhere around 10,000 billion, billion stars and these represent only about 4% of what there really is, well, you get the idea. God's creation is unimaginably vast.
And it is unimaginably creative and beautiful. If we look on the ocean floor at giant tube worms, we see these worms and some species of shrimp which live in environments that are unbelievably hostile. These creatures live in a solution of hydrogen sulfide which would kill any other living thing. they also live in temperatures which would melt steel. And yet they live and thrive just where God put them.
In the Bible book of Psalms, verse 104, the Psalmist wrote; "Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, You are very great:You are clothed with honor and majesty, Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment,Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain."
When we look at the universe we can see the majesty of God, in brief. We could not survive a true glimpse of the full majesty of God. But one day, when Jesus Christ comes to take His followers with Him into His eternal kingdom, we will be able to not only see, but interact with the God who created us and His universe.
I am excited about this coming day. Are you?
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