“LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 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, human beings that you care for them?” Psalm 8:1-2
Below is a stunning new picture of the Tarantula Nebula taken by the hubble space telescope. Take a few moments to contemplate this image and the others below and let the majesty, beauty, and immeasurable vastness of God fill your heart. Consider the stars and the expanse of the universe. Then consider the One who set in all in place and keeps it in existence. Consider who He is. Consider who you are.
The Tarantula Nebula
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
“He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.” Psalm 147:4
Magnetic loops emanating from the Sun
“Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. ” Psalm 74:6
The Carina Nebula
“Who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea.” Job 9:7-8
The North American Nebula
“For his (God’s) invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
Open Star Cluster NGC 6791
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” Psalm 33:6
Psalm 8 is one of my favourites. I regularly think on it at night, especially when I’m in Northern Ontario where the sky is clear and the stars are bright. I also like the way the writer to the Hebrews pulls it through to fulfillment in Jesus (Hebrews 2).
Matty and I have started to look at the sky more carefully at night. We bought a book called, Backyard Guide to the night sky.
“Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:5-9
Thank you, Bryan, for sharing these amazing pictures. They moved me to tears.