We see things all the time, but it does not mean we appreciate or ponder what we see. Observing the heavens reminds me to more carefully consider what I have seen. It happened in November as I observed the moon twice but under widely different conditions. So let me start with an observing story and the associated sketches then show you how God extended the lesson to something more serious
We were traveling across the north central Texas on November 10, 2012. Our evening stop at Caprock Canyon Campground was too late to see much but we woke early to see the waning crescent moon as sunlight began fading it against the light blue morning sky. With only a few days before new moon, it generally fades from sight by 9 am or so. While the canyon was beautiful, the simple scene at the campsite with the fading crescent in the sky was fun to sketch. The moon size is exaggerated in the sketch but its orientation and contrast to the sky is accurate.
Eight days later we were observing an individual moon crater at 155 power using a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. So using precision optics and studying a large crater near the terminator (border between lunar night and day) is quite a bit different. The sketch, of course, is utterly different in field of view, equipment, and observing conditions.
So the sketches are so different, but the same observer made them. As I thought about the two observations together, I asked the Lord about it (as I usually do). I thought over the conditions, the subject matter, the different locations, and the recorded sketches. This morning I thought about it again and remembered this tiny little scene in Matthew (chapter 8 verses 14-15). Jesus visits Peter’s mother-in-law, who has a fever. He goes to her bed with Peter, reaches to touch her with his hand, and heals her. It is a quick, small, obscure miracle in one little home for one person. There is no fanfare or tumultuous scene. Then I remembered a “little” part of one verse at the beginning of John (chapter 1 verse 3) that says, “through him all things were made.” So the Maker of Orion visits a little woman with a small problem, touches her, and heals her. It is inescapable: our God has an expansive view of things that stretches from the smallest things to those we think are the largest. Which is harder to do: make a galaxy or heal a woman of a fever?
With this in view, the juxtaposition of a little campsite scene and a crater on the moon at high magnification and special equipment take on a bit more meaning. They are vastly different, but the same observer. So the Lord uses it to remind me that he has the greatest and largest things in view on one hand but has no trouble embracing the least and smallest things on the other. That is a tiny picture of the embrace of our God—the One who cares for us and takes the time to present Himself to us in numerous ways, so we might choose to believe Him, even though He is the Creator of really big things.
