David considered the night sky and wrote, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, … what is man…? (Psalm 8:4)”
On a dark night, far from city lights, we can see about 2,000 stars with the naked eye. Hubble telescope research suggests we have at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and that our galaxy is just one of 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe! Such numbers are outrageously large. Moreover, research in recent decades reveals our universe to be “fine tuned” with astounding precision; scientists refer to this as the Anthropic Cosmological Principal. The Encyclopaedia Britannica includes the following in their description: “it appears that many features of the universe that are necessary for the [origin and] persistence of life are the results of unusual coincidences between different values of the constants of nature—quantities such as the mass of the electron, the strength of gravity, or the lifetime of the neutron … What is understood is that, if these quantities were slightly altered, then no form of complexity or life could exist in the universe.”
And yet life does exist, you included! The size and complexity of the universe is beyond staggering; so vast it is no wonder that we sometimes ask, like the psalmist, “Am I significant?” To a Christian, it is no surprise that we live in a fine-tuned universe because we don’t believe life is made up of “unusual coincidences”. David also wrote Psalm 139 which includes, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (v14)” Do you struggle to see yourself as God sees you? Seeing ourselves rightly begins with seeing God as creator: of the universe and us.
Something to See:
The foundation of a godly worldview comes with understanding where we came from. You are “fearfully and wonderfully made!” Can you say with David, “My soul knows it well?” Ask the Lord to help you see yourself as a result of his purposeful creation – finely tuned just right for his purposes!