Counting the Stars

According to scientific evidence, there are 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. Now, it’s hard to grasp that large of a number but written out it would look like this – 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. When I look up at the sky at night, I see just a handful of stars as a city girl. If I’m out in the wide open spaces of the country, I can see many more, but it doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of all the stars in the universe.

It takes 50 million years to create one star. They are born from clouds of dust and live up to 10 million years. Even now when you look at the night sky, you’ll see some of the stars the first humans did and the ancient Greeks named. These clusters of gas and dust remind us how infinite the universe is and how intricate our God, the Creator, made even the stars in the sky.

In Genesis 15, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, soon to be Abraham. If we study the life of Abraham we see a faulty human. He lied about his wife, Sarah, indicating she was his sister. He engaged in a plan with Sarah to fulfill God’s promise their own way with Hagar bearing a son for Abraham. Yet God loved Him so. We also see Abraham was a faithful servant. We read of those times of faithfulness sandwiched in between his disobedience. Isn’t that the way we are? Obedient in one breath and disobedient in the next. Abraham’s life stands as a testimony and encouragement to us that even when we fail, God still can use us for His purposes.

Back to Genesis 15…the Lord promised to Abraham that he would be blessed with heirs beyond his ability to number. I love the conversation Abraham has with the Lord. It is so real and vulnerable. Abraham doubts what God can do given his lack of an heir at his advanced age, or seeking that heir to come from the child born to him from Hagar. Verse 5 says, “He (the Lord) took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them. Your offspring will be that numerous.”

Scripture doesn’t say how the Lord came to Abraham except in a vision. But the patient way the Lord took Abraham outside to show him the stars in the sky provides a picture of a loving Lord amidst an intimate conversation with a doubting man. Abraham likely started this conversation with the Lord in his tent. It was somewhere not in the open spaces where he could see the sky. Perhaps in a space where there were limitations, walls surrounding Abraham. The Lord wanted to expand Abraham’s vision, and eventual legacy, by taking him outside this place with limits to look up at a limitless sky.

The Lord tells Abraham to look up and count the stars – if he is even able – and that will be how numerous his offspring would be. God is gracious to take what is abstract and impossible to grasp and create a picture by way of a night sky, so that Abraham can understand. “Count the stars. Can’t count them all? That’s ok, but that is how enormous your offspring will become.” The Creator uses His creation to explain the unexplainable to Abraham.

The next time you look up into the night sky and see a star, or a lot of stars, count them, then stop and count the many blessings our Creator has given us. Often too numerous for us to count. The Creator of the stars and the entire universe cares deeply for you.

-Rose Booth