An Eight Hundred-Million-Mile Promise

 

O

ne evening just after sunset as the sky exchanged its fiery orange vestments for a cloak of deep indigo; I watched the stars come out one by one.  Directly over my head a large slice of black grew wider and wider as the sky slowly opened, erasing the curvature of the earth and giving me a full view of the worlds surrounding our little planet. 

 

In the southwestern sky, I noticed a dim but steadily glowing object, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.  I fixed my gaze on this one area and noticed that the disk, unlike the others surrounding it, did not twinkle.  This could mean only one thing—a planet!  Unlike stars, which generate their own light and therefore twinkle, planets reflect the light of their suns.  Given the steady glow coming from the object, its size, and the small amount of light reflected, I knew it had to be a distant planet. 

 

On this particular evening, I had my telescope with me. Earlier in the week, I had observed Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.  Jupiter was also in the sky that evening and although it was tempting to look at it again, even more tempting was this mysterious glowing dot in the sky.  I trained the telescope over to the object and aligned it, placing the object dead center of the crosshairs of the finder scope.  After a few adjustments for the focus and after allowing my eyes to adjust to the small glimmer coming from the lens, I beheld one of the most beautiful sights the night sky has to offer—Saturn! 

 

For years I had read books about the planets and the large ringed giant always captivated me.  I remember spending hours looking at pictures of Saturn and its rings taken from large earth-bound telescopes.  I never imagined I would actually see it for myself, let alone in my own scope. But there it was in all its glory, this ringed giant, nine and half times larger than our planet at the equator, floating in the nothingness of space, gracefully dancing around the sun over eight hundred million miles away! 

 

I stepped back from the scope and looked at the small dot in the sky.  It seemed impossible to believe.  I was standing in my back yard, in my small town, looking at an object hundreds of millions of miles away.  You want to talk about feeling small!  I looked back into the scope just to be sure I was seeing Saturn.  Sure enough, the rings were still there and the planet was still suspended in the blackness of space continuing its circular dance just as it had from the moment of its creation.  As I looked at that planet and the other stars in the sky I was reminded that all of them had been viewed by other eyes thousands of years before I was born.  The same stars and planets I observed were the same as those seen by Moses, by Sampson, by King David, and by a man who received an eight hundred-million-mile promise, Abraham! 

 

In Genesis 15, we find Abraham gazing at the night sky.  In fact, God invited Abraham outside for what has to be man’s first recorded visit to a planetarium.  Only this was no planetarium!  Abraham received a personally guided tour of the heavens by the creator Himself.  Not a bad way to spend an evening, huh?  Genesis 15:5 reads, “He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”   

 

In this passage, God is confirming to Abraham His promise to make Abraham the father of many nations.  A promise is only as good the integrity of the person making it.  In order to reassure Abraham, God took him outside to view the stars. I can almost hear God speaking to Abraham. “Look at all of these Abraham.  You were not born when I flung them into the heavens.  They have been here from the beginning and they will be here at the end.  They are the constant display of my faithfulness to you.  I hung them on nothing, and I maintain all of them in their orbits, even the ones you cannot see.  You can trust me to hold you and to provide for every need you have, even the ones you know nothing about and cannot see.  You are far more precious and beautiful to me than all the stars in the night sky.” 

 

I believe Abraham heard something like this from God.  I am not attempting to add to scripture, far be it from me to do such a thing, but I also know that Abraham was God’s friend and I believe this is the assurance God impressed upon Abraham’s mind.  Saturn was in the sky that night just as it is now: the same planet, the same orbit, the same sun, and the same God!  Not bad for an eight hundred-million-mile promise, huh?