Lessons from the stars...

When I wake up to pray in the early morning, I love to look out my window up into the heaven full of stars.

I love to look at the stars, because they remind me how BIG our God is! 

I remember watching a video a few years ago where some astronomer shared that if you hold your thumb up at the sky at arms length (you know, as if you are giving God a happy "thumbs up" of encouragement), and if you look at your thumb with the sky behind, you are effectively blocking out about ten billion galaxies…..with just your thumb. Now that's a pretty staggering number, I have to admit. But I think he's probably greatly underestimating what is really out there. After all, has anyone really counted the stars?    

God even asked Abraham if he could number the stars…

"Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them?" Gen. 15:15

It's obvious that the answer was no! And yet in Psalms 147:4 we are told that our God can number the stars. He not only knows their number, he also calls them all by their names:

"He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names." Ps. 147:4

And yet this God, who calleth them all by name wants to do soooooo much MORE with our lives, above and beyond what we can imagine or think. 

If we back up to Genesis 15, we see that after God asked Abraham if he could number the stars, he told him, "So shall thy seed be." In other words, as many stars as you can count or not count, SO SHALL THEY SEED BE! Now that was a pretty staggering outrageous promise on the part of God, doesn't it seem? And yet… He's God!!!  And what is so beautiful is that Abraham accepted His Word. It says:

"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:16

Did you catch that?? He BELIEVED in the LORD….He took God at His Word!!!!!! And the Lord counted it to Him for righteousness. 

But the story doesn't stop there. In Hebrews 11, in the "Hall of Faith" chapter, we are told the rest of the story:

"By faith he [Abraham] sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised." 

And here's the key verse, the RESULT of them having faith and believeing…

"Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." Hebrews 11:9-12

God fulfilled, and is still fulfilling, His promise to Abraham that day! Abraham wont know it until He is taken home for eternity, but none the less, God kept His Word!!!! And He is still keeping His Word even today!

Wow… If Abraham believed God's word…shouldn't we?

Review

• Bible Thought: We should trust the Word of the One who created the stars!
• Blessing: Another miracle, another answered prayer last night!! So amazing!! 
• Battle: So often, even still, I look to myself to accomplish what God asks, rather than looking to Him who made the stars. Praying that God will help me always keep this perspective straight!