Every now and then, there’s something that comes across my path that floors me, that reminds me of my identity and my place in the greater context of the universe that we live in. This past week, it was a simple picture that spoke volumes. Allow me to share it with you here.
(You can click on the photo to be taken to NASA’s site where you can get a larger and higher quality picture. Go there. It’s definitely worth it!)
What you’re seeing here is a gorgeous picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a cluster of galaxies officially known as Abell S0740. That bright yellow light just off-center in the photo? It’s not a solar flare. It’s a simple galaxy, albeit one that is approximately 100,000 light-years wide and contains about 100 BILLION stars.
As impressive that is, this is what really blew me away: This whole galaxy cluster is about 450 MILLION light-years away from Earth. That number becomes even more staggering, even more unfathomable when you consider that one light-year is the measurement of how far a ray of light travels in one year, and, boy, those rays are speed freaks, racing at 186,282.397 miles per second. In one year, a single ray of light will have traveled approximately 5.8 trillion miles. It is a huge understatement to say that 5.8 trillion miles multiplied by 450 million is a pretty darn big number.
Let those numbers sink in, I mean, REALLY sink in. It makes that road trip to California look like a quick trip to the supermarket, doesn’t it? That’s how huge, massive, immense, BIG the universe is outside our atmosphere AND that’s only a small slice of it!
Feeling small yet? That’s how I felt when I took the time to stare at the photograph and absorb it. My life and its problems suddenly felt pretty silly, petty and insignificant. Who was I to think I mattered, that I was someone whose life had some importance? My six-foot-two frame wouldn’t even register as a blip when compared to the staggering sizes and distances that existed outside of our blue atmosphere. I felt like an atom of a really tiny ant in a huge, cosmic sandbox.
Then a little voice reminded me that God, the Creator of the entire universe, the God who created all those billions upon billions of galaxies and the trillions of stars and planets that reside in them, was the same God that created tiny us.
It was the same God who, despite being able to do anything and everything He wanted, loved us and decided to come to our tiny corner of the universe and save us from our sin by dying on the cross in the form of the human Jesus, who felt humanity, in order to be with us for eternity. It is going to be the same God who will be with us in eternity at the end of time, long after our sun burns out and all the galaxies diminish into nothingness.
If you’ve been feeling insignificant lately, if life just seems so big and overwhelming, just walk outside and gaze upon the stars and remember that there’s NOTHING in the entire cosmos that God loves as much as YOU.
CreatorgalaxyGodHubblelovesignificanceuniverse
Do You Realize Your Significance?
February 15, 2007
Calvary
Comments Off on Do You Realize Your Significance?
Matt
Every now and then, there’s something that comes across my path that floors me, that reminds me of my identity and my place in the greater context of the universe that we live in. This past week, it was a simple picture that spoke volumes. Allow me to share it with you here.
(You can click on the photo to be taken to NASA’s site where you can get a larger and higher quality picture. Go there. It’s definitely worth it!)
What you’re seeing here is a gorgeous picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a cluster of galaxies officially known as Abell S0740. That bright yellow light just off-center in the photo? It’s not a solar flare. It’s a simple galaxy, albeit one that is approximately 100,000 light-years wide and contains about 100 BILLION stars.
As impressive that is, this is what really blew me away: This whole galaxy cluster is about 450 MILLION light-years away from Earth. That number becomes even more staggering, even more unfathomable when you consider that one light-year is the measurement of how far a ray of light travels in one year, and, boy, those rays are speed freaks, racing at 186,282.397 miles per second. In one year, a single ray of light will have traveled approximately 5.8 trillion miles. It is a huge understatement to say that 5.8 trillion miles multiplied by 450 million is a pretty darn big number.
Let those numbers sink in, I mean, REALLY sink in. It makes that road trip to California look like a quick trip to the supermarket, doesn’t it? That’s how huge, massive, immense, BIG the universe is outside our atmosphere AND that’s only a small slice of it!
Feeling small yet? That’s how I felt when I took the time to stare at the photograph and absorb it. My life and its problems suddenly felt pretty silly, petty and insignificant. Who was I to think I mattered, that I was someone whose life had some importance? My six-foot-two frame wouldn’t even register as a blip when compared to the staggering sizes and distances that existed outside of our blue atmosphere. I felt like an atom of a really tiny ant in a huge, cosmic sandbox.
Then a little voice reminded me that God, the Creator of the entire universe, the God who created all those billions upon billions of galaxies and the trillions of stars and planets that reside in them, was the same God that created tiny us.
It was the same God who, despite being able to do anything and everything He wanted, loved us and decided to come to our tiny corner of the universe and save us from our sin by dying on the cross in the form of the human Jesus, who felt humanity, in order to be with us for eternity. It is going to be the same God who will be with us in eternity at the end of time, long after our sun burns out and all the galaxies diminish into nothingness.
If you’ve been feeling insignificant lately, if life just seems so big and overwhelming, just walk outside and gaze upon the stars and remember that there’s NOTHING in the entire cosmos that God loves as much as YOU.
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