“Consider the stars in the sky; when it is darkest they shine out the brightest.”
Consider the Stars – A Song by Keith and Kristyn Getty
Sometimes a song can cut through you. You know, knock down your defenses, stir you up inside, catch you off guard with such emotion that your heart (and your eyes) simply overflow. That happened to me last night. Midway through listening to Consider the Stars I broke into a good, old-fashioned cry. It felt so good!
As the song ended I began to think about how perfect it is that the sky serves to provide a blanket over us—shimmering by night, glorious with its sun and clouds by day. Israel’s beloved King David celebrated it in Psalm 19:1 when he wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” What a wondrous hymn to the greatness of God and His creation!
I’ve had a love affair with the sky since I was a child in my small Missouri hometown. On hot summer days I would stretch out on my back in our clover-filled yard, lace my hands behind my head and stare up at the clouds. There, I would see all sorts of people—great and small, puppy dogs, elephants and the occasional kangaroo! The shapes would swirl into view, only to be swept away as quickly as they had come.
At night, the stars would twinkle and sometimes fall leaving a trail. They seemed to go on forever in their formations—Orion this, Big Dipper that, as the moon with its changing shape and size presided over it all. Night after night the starry quilt was secure. Even a cloud cover couldn’t erase the vivid memory of its presence.
All this to say, even as the world’s chaos entangles us and the harsh reality of living in a time when man’s inhumanity to man is so blatantly on the rise, there are precious signs in the heavens and simple songs that declare we are all cradled and surrounded by God’s unchanging love.
Take a few moments to listen to Consider the Stars. Just Google it. It may carry you to a place of such peaceful tenderness that you, like me, could find yourself weeping for joy!
Kay Harper-God is Big 