One evening a few weeks ago, I went for a walk. I was almost home when I saw it. A shooting star! It crossed the heavens before me, brightly lighting the sky for a moment, then winking out. I stood there open-mouthed, half waiting for the rumbling thunderous sonic boom Hollywood always seems to add to these moments. Nothing. Silence. A still moment, and I found myself thanking God for the Wonder.
In the back of my mind, the factoids began to roll. A bit of cosmic dust, intersecting the atmosphere. Not important in the general scheme of things. No armies will march in its service, no prophets cry out a doom in its wake. But the Wonder was there, and it was real. And it lasted longer than the star's journey across the night sky.
Then, thoughts about the brevity of life began to flirt with my mind, an almost Ecclesiastes-like pessimism. “Life is like a speck, burning across the sky, then gone. To an Eternal God, how quickly our lives must flash before Him, gone almost before they start.”
Psalm 90:4, 10 A thousand years in Your sight is but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night....The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Yet the Wonder remained, and a new thought came: “Yes, your life is brief, but the Lord rejoices to see it.”
In “olden days”, men were astonished seeing what they believed to be fixed points in the heavens fall. Their minds raced for reasons, and often hit upon coming disaster or warnings from the gods. Even with the comfort of education, it took a Still Small Voice to turn pessimism to praise, insignificance to security, for there is a Living God, and He sees me. He sees us, and he rejoices to see us carry His spark across the heavens.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your finger, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. Psalm 8: 3-5
