The God of Wonders

I did some reading today on the concept of ‘light years’. Although I previously had a vague idea of what it was, I wanted to know a little bit more. And honestly speaking, today’s reading experience has given me a refreshing appreciation of God’s grandeur.

Prior to my reading today, I knew that light had the fastest travelling speed than any other thing but I didn’t know the nitty gritty of such a speed. Today I found out that light travels at a rate of 186,287.5 miles per second. According to the ‘Ask an Astrophysicist’ section of US National Aeronautics And Space Administration’s (NASA) Imagine the Universe website[i], a light year is the distance that light travels in one year. Question: what is the distance travelled by light in one year?

You can find out the number of seconds in a year by multiplying the number of seconds in a minute (60) by the number of minutes in an hour (60). Then multiply that by the number of hours in a day (24), and multiply that by the number of days in a year (approximately 365.25): 60seconds x 60minutes x 24 hours x 365.25 days = 31,557,600 seconds in a year. So a light year (i.e. the distance travelled by light in one year) is about 5,878,786,100,000 miles (i.e. 31,557,600 seconds x 186,287.5 miles per second).  This is approximately 6 trillion miles.  Can you even mentally picture this distance? What’s more? I found out on this NASA site that (1) the distance from the earth to the Sun is 93 million miles. (2) The distance to the nearest star is 4.3 light years. If some of the information I’ve read on the internet are right, then the Sun is bigger than the earth and most stars are much bigger than the sun so you can just imagine this picture. Mind you, one galaxy is supposed be a collection of some millions to trillions of stars that are held together by gravity.According to the NASA website, the following observation is what they have made:

 “… in 1999 the Hubble Space Telescope estimated that there were 125 billion galaxies in the universe, and recently with the new camera HST has observed 3,000 visible galaxies, which is twice as much as they observed before with the old camera. We’re emphasizing “visible” because observations with radio telescopes, infrared cameras, x-ray cameras, etc. would detect other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. As observations keep on going and astronomers explore more of our universe, the number of galaxies detected will increase.”

Can you imagine? One star as big as the sun or even bigger and one galaxy containing millions to trillions of stars and then having over 125 billion of such galaxies. Make no mistake, this universe is vast beyond imagination! And all these were created and are being sustained by God. This is the God who can be everywhere at the same time, who lives outside of time and who is All-powerful. What an awesome God! And this is only a little bit of the universe I am discovering.

In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Apostle Paul argues that the invisible qualities of God can be seen in the visible world:  “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans1:20 NIV. How true! God is big and mighty. No wonder the Psalmist (8:4) asked “what are human beings, that you think of them; mere mortals, that you care for them?” The music band Third Day sing of God’s awesomeness in their song God of Wonders thus:

Lord of all creation

Of water earth and sky

The heaveans are your Tabernacle

Glory to the Lord on high

[Chorus:]

God of wonders beyond our galaxy

You are Holy, Holy

The universe declares your Majesty

And you are holy holy

Lord of Heaven and Earth

Lord of Heaven and Earth

Early in the morning

I will celebrate the light

When i stumble in the darkness

I will call your name by night

[Chorus]

Lord of heaven and earth

Lord of heaven and earth

Hallelujah to the lord of heaven and earth

Holy……holy….holy god

[Chorus]

Precious lord reveal your heart to me

Father holy..

[backround]…Lord god almighty…

The universe declares your majesty

You are holy, holy, holy, holy,

Hallelujah to the lord of heaven and earth.[ii]

Yet this is what the Lord of heaven and earth says through the prophet Isaiah (57:15): “I am the high and holy God, who lives forever. I live in a high and holy place, but I also live with people who are humble and repentant, so that I can restore their confidence and hope.” Further, He sends the prophet Ezekiel (33:11) saying, “Tell them that as surely as I, the Sovereign LORD, am the living God, I do not enjoy seeing sinners die. I would rather see them stop sinning and live. Israel, stop the evil you are doing. Why do you want to die?” His heart cries for us sinners. This same God – the creator of this awesome universe – is still calling us all, today, to come out of darkness into his own marvellous light. This is the God who humbly took on human flesh, in Jesus Christ, to redeem us from sin through that gory death on the cross at Mount Calvary. This is the God who wants to give us eternal life. This is the God before whom we go in prayer; the one who has torn the curtain in the holy of holies to allow ordinary people like you and I to have access into his holy presence daily, hourly, minute by minute, pico second by pico second – in fact His door is ever open to the meditations of our hearts and the words of our mouth. What a privilege to have the God of Wonders as a father and King. Let’s give him all our devotion.

Written on January 17, 2012.

References:

Unless otherwise stated, all scriptures are taken from the Good News Bible – Second Edition © 1994.