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Awe & Wonder!
April 22, 2018
Recently on the nightly news we learned of a new star identified by those who dedicate their careers to astronomy and astrophysics. In that report we learned that this new star is the most distant star ever seen, located some 9 billion light years from earth. This star is said to be a million times more luminous than the sun.
What words can one use? Amazing, unbelievable, unfathomable, astonishing, awesome! Oh, and one more very relevant word: GOD.
Only God our creator could have put such order to the universe! When we think of how God created, we often think very small, like in; God created the earth. In comparison to the universe our world is indeed small, even miniscule. It is difficult to wrap our head around how much God truly did create.
So how big is our God!? In the words of St. Augustine: “God is, that of which nothing greater can be thought.” Let us try to wrap our heads around that!
What is just as astonishing is that God, who has the ability to create beyond our imagining, also chose to create us.
This seems almost too much to take in. Why us? Why humanity?
Why me? God loves beyond our imagining. What can we be but grateful? What can we do but look to God for inspiration? How can we love, except in and through and by the love of God for us?
One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is “Awe and Wonder” and it seems so appropriate to the discovery of this new star. Even that humanity can identify it and find it in our night sky seems miraculous. And yet the real miracle is in how it was first created and by whom. When we take time to ponder and reflect upon even the discovery of a new star, we are actively engaged in prayer: we are thinking about, speaking to and contemplating God. In these ways we pray and by faith we understand that God hears us and even more importantly desires to hear us. He cares deeply about all that we bring to him.
Let us be deliberate, taking time to look around and realize how the hand of God can be seen in every part of our world. Then, with eyes and hearts wide open, let us show our gratitude to God by the way we live and act and love, that all might come to understand the great gift of Awe & Wonder in God’s presence.
With gratitude and joy,
Deb Rudolph