10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Stars

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Stars, a low estimate of what we can see.

Let’s trip out for a moment.

The light from many of those stars started traveling toward us before human history began. What we see tonight is ancient — a message sent across unimaginable time.

Astronomers say the stars we can detect may outnumber all the grains of sand on Earth.
And everything we can see — planets, gas, galaxies, light — might be only about 4% of what actually exists.

Most of reality is still hidden.

So let me get this straight.

I worry about bills.
About opinions.
About outcomes.

Meanwhile we are a speck orbiting an ordinary star in one galaxy among billions.

By size and scale, I am almost nothing.

And yet…

The Creator of this unsearchable vastness
knows I’m here.

Not randomly.
Not reluctantly.

But by intention.

The turn

I am not just present in creation.

I am wanted in it.

Loved enough to be given breath.
Cared for enough to be sustained through every rise and fall.
Considered enough that the God who writes physics and gravity would still lean close to the human heart.

“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?”
— Psalm 8:3–4

David felt the smallness.

But he also felt the miracle:

God is mindful of us.

Think about that.

The One who throws galaxies into motion
chose that you would wake up this morning.

Out of everything that could exist —
you do.

What a privilege.
What a gift.
What a joy to participate in something this enormous, this alive, this sacred.

And like the universe, we are still expanding.
Still being shaped.
Still becoming.

You are not forgotten in the size of it.

You are included in it.

“He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.”
— Psalm 147:4

If He names the stars…

how much more the sons and daughters He loves.

So love this, my friends.

Love that you are here.
Love that you are known.
Love that you are carried through mysteries you can’t solve.

The same hand that flung suns into space
holds you with care.

Closing Prayer

Father,
thank You for the joy of being part of Your creation.
In a universe too large to measure, You still choose to see us, love us, and stay near.
Help us live today aware that we are wanted, guided, and held by the Author of it all.
Let wonder fill us with gratitude and peace.
Amen.