Published With Thanksgiving

“The Holy One has counted every star. By their name the Holy One calls them” (Psalm 147.4).

I can’t tell you how many times standing in my driveway on a winter’s evening this line from the Psalms comes to mind. Of course, it’s out in the country where my wife grew up that I encounter a sky closer to what inspired the Psalmist. And, wow, counting all those stars in a night seems impossible.

What our Psalmist never imagined is that what we see in the night sky is just a tiny fraction of the stars in the universe. Current estimates are that we are surrounded by some two-hundred-billion-trillion stars. That’s a one with twenty-five zeroes behind it.

Of course, the Psalmist’s point is not so much that the Divine knows the total number of stars but the implication: that God is bigger and more awesome than we can imagine. It’s meant to be humbling, to remind us that what takes peak human technology working at its top speed is something the Holy One can do easily. Look at the night sky, is one way to read this line of poetry, and remember that you are not god.

But there is more here than just the big-ness of the Divine. In fact, there’s something more wondrous to which we are pointed.

“By their name,” we read, “the Holy One calls them.” It’s poetic license. There is no way any mortal can know the mind or actions of the Divine. And, yet, I believe with all my heart that this statement is as accurate and true as the idea that Jesus was God come to walk along with us. Sure, it’s a wonderful image of the Creator greeting even the tiniest Red Dwarf by its name. But it also points to a reality we know is true—all Creation is loved by God.

I know and believe in the love that is the very character of Christ. Every year I find I am (slowly) learning the height and depth and breadth and width of that love. But that is just the love that surrounds me, the ones closest to me, the animals and trees and flowers I see. Maybe on the best of days, I remember how that love embraces every single person I encounter.

But the Psalmist’s words—the God of Love not only is aware of but loves deeply and dearly every single star in the night sky—bring me to the stark reality that I have no more concept of that all-encompassing love I do the number of stars above me on any given night of the year.

So, on a clear night, step outside and look up. Try, if you like, to count just the stars that stretch across your patch of sky. Then remember, as the night’s chill chases you back inside, that every light is loved for all it is, all it can be, and is known by name.

Then, remember that you are loved just the same.

Namer of stars, your Creation is breathtaking, awe-inspiring. And, in ways I can barely understand, you love all of it as if it were the only thing you had made. Help me to love your creation—the stars, the birds, the people—as much as you love me.