I had the privilege of preaching on Isaiah 40 on Sunday. In the middle of this chapter, Isaiah urges us to consider who God is and what he’s like as a way to motivate us to turn away from idolatry. One of the ways he does this is to direct our attention to the stars:

Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing. (Is. 40:26)

Amazing! God has not only numbered by named every star in the universe! There are so many stars, we don’t really know how many there are. I’ve always heard that there are something like 100 billion galaxies like our Milky Way, each galaxy holding 100 billion stars. Tony Rossell sent me this link to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center which confirms that that’s a good estimate. If you write it out, it looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s a lot of stars, a lot of names.

Next time you’re gazing into the night sky, remember: every one of those stars has a name. And God remembers all their names without breaking a sweat. Next time you’re tempted to put your trust or hope of affection in something other than God, remember who He is and what He’s done.

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