When David penned the words, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars…(Psalm 8:3),” he did not know just how big those dots of light in the night sky were. Galileo had not yet used the telescope to observe the sky.
The vastness of the universe overwhelms the mind. Take for instance the latest NASA Mars rover. Perseverance traveled 292 million miles, the equivalent of circling the earth almost 12,000 times, to reach its destination. MIT professor and science writer Emma Chapman recently said that, even with advanced telescopes able to see billions of light years away, the our gap in our data concerning the universe equates to missing all the information about someone from the moment of conception to the first day of school.
Such vastness led astronomer and author Carl Sagan to say: “Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.”
Yet, when David asked, “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?,” he answered: “You have made them [humans] a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet…(Psalm 8:4).”
God’s great concern and honored position for you and me in his big universe ought to amaze us. Imagine a carpenter picking up a speck of sawdust from his woodshop and saying, “You are precious in my sight and to you I entrust all the beautiful creations I’ve made.” As peculiar as this may sound, it is true of how God looks at humanity. We are not a people on some galaxy tucked in a forgotten corner; we are dearly loved and esteemed by God, the creator of all.
Do you know God care for you and you are precious in his sight? Do you know you mean so much to him that he sent his One and Only Son to die for your sins, yes even yours? Do you know his desire for you is to prosper you, and he offers you a secure, eternal glorious inheritance in heaven? You are not a pea on an insignificant planet tucked in a corner of the universe; you are crowned with his glory.