For the last week or so I’ve been lucky enough to go sailing off the rugged coast of Turkey. One night about 4am the anchor on our little boat dragged and the automatic alarm sounded when the boat was just a few feet from the rocks.
After we put the boat into deeper water again the others went back below to bed but I saw the vast array of stars. It was unlike anything I’d seen in the UK. I sat transfixed. All across and every way were brilliantly bright stars in great arrays of constellations. All across the centre a glow lit up a band of these – I suppose our galaxy the milky way seen side on – millions of stars closer than the other millions of galaxies.
In the story of Job he says ‘No one helped God spread out the heavens. God hung the stars in the sky.’ I like that because it describes God’s work as precise.
One word describes it to me – AWESOME. I was filled with a spirit of wonder and praise beyond words and I felt a closeness to God who was with me as well as all around the universe.
We are told that Jesus went up into the hills at night to pray. (John 6 & Luke 6). I reckon that he kept his eyes open to be inspired with the display that I saw and become close to God’s majesty.
Psalm 6 says ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’ – and how they do !
John in Dorset UK
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