When I Look at Your Heavens

It’s been a while since I’ve taken in the starry host.

Image Source: Canva Stock Library

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3–4 ESV

I used to be more of a camper.

Back in my university years, I would spend weeks at a time sleeping in tents as a treeplanter. In other summers, I led backcountry camping expeditions deep into the Manitoba wilderness.

Times have changed, and in the last decade, even family camping trips in provincial parks have petered out. I don’t think I’ve spent time in a tent in years.

I still love the outdoors, of course, and I manage to fit in some epic Rocky Mountain hikes each summer.

But those overnight adventures in the wild appear to be on pause.

It’s not an intense regret, either. Call me soft, but I’ve grown a strong preference for the feeling of slowly waking up in a luxurious hotel bed. It definitely beats having my face pressed up against the cold, damp canvas of a dew-covered tent.

But I do miss the night sky.

I miss the experience of having my breath taken away by the sheer size and brilliance of the starry expanse, far removed from the light pollution of the city.

The magnificence is deafening.

It’s a wonder that has awed mankind since the beginning of time. Simply taking it all in as a two-dimensional work of art is inspiring enough. But once one starts to consider the distances, the physics, the astronomical principles at work to create these masterpieces … well, the mind is blown.

It has the inevitable effect of making us feel infinitely small. And in a literal, physical sense, so we are.

We are specks. Microscopic. Whatever we accomplish in this life will have not an iota of impact on the galaxies and stars that surround us.

From the dust on this planet we came, and in a breath, to the dust we will return.

What am I, that you are mindful of me?

It’s a humbling thought. But when we can also see his love for us — when we truly see it, believe it, embrace his incalculable and unstoppable love for these temporary specks — it’s equally breathtaking.

Thank you, Father.

I think I need to go camping again.