Explosions

I read something today that blew my brain out of its skull. The latest National Geographic has an article about the mysteries of stars and in particular how they explode and die. There’s this quote on one of the pages that says “once a second somewhere in the universe a star explodes with the brilliance of an entire galaxy”. After I let those words sink in, I had a hard time truly understanding the totality of that statement. Bam. Bam. Bam. Three stars billions and trillions of light years away just exploded. Huge explosions that would make anything we’ve seen look trivial in comparison.
My mind just got lost for a little while after I put the magazine down. I started thinking about how humongous our galaxy and universe our. Science has made amazing strides in understanding our surroundings in space, but we still have only scratched the surface of what is actually out there. I feel really small when I think about how big this universe is. I feel incredibly egocentric when I realize how much time I spend worrying about my own needs.
One of the most amazing things, though, comes when the realization hits that there is Someone in control of all these events, not to mention all this space. As my limited knowledge increases about these deep subjects, the Person behind it all becomes cleared. It’s almost as if the muddy confusion in the foreground of the picture just serves to highlight the magnificence of the God behind it. Behind our limited knowledge and our limitless questions stands a perfect God.
I have a hard time understanding that God can hold the universe in the palm of his hands. That just sends my mind into utter confusion. All these things, all these exploding stars, all these millions and billions and trillions of miles of space are under the control of the Almighty.
Today, the eyes of my heart see God much like David must have seen God when he wrote this Psalm. “You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea…You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy” (psalm 65:7,8). All of this stuff, all of these things, they point to God. I cannot say that with enough force.
I start to realize maybe my problems aren’t really as big as I make them seem. In the presence of the refulgent Light of God, my darkness is exposed at its core. All of this comes back to God. It all points to Him.
And He has allowed me to know Him. He who brought forth the ends of space extends His love to me. Wow.