Exquisitely Guided: January 2009

We very rarely begin a task without having a specific, self-interested reason for doing so. We attend school perhaps because we want to learn, but of course due to the reality that without an education, we do not have as much opportunity for making a living. In turn, we work not necessarily because we enjoy it, but because we wish to have the perks that come along with money. We are kind to our neighbors, hopefully in wishing to live as Christ, but as a practical means of ensuring our own support when we ourselves are in difficult straits.

He counts the number of the stars.

I daresay He does not need to know their number. He has told us that He can count the stars, and yet has never published in human tongue the exact number, like He might of if He were human--He has not printed it in the latest scientific journal, signed GOD. In that sense He has not boasted. And it is not as if stars are human beings, in need of at least the occassional meal or sip of water, or birds, desirous of twig-ball nests and leafy branches above them, or living creatures in need of His mighty hand for survival. To be sure, however, stars owe to Him their placement and their suspension in the atmosphere. But stars are stars: things we humans know so little about in the grand scheme of things; bright drops in the sky little children look at and imagine to be nail holes of light into the heavens, or rolling orbs of fire, or fireflies, forever placed and forever "on." What end is to be achieved by counting them?

He counts the number of the stars.

Could it be else, but wonder? Could it be else but uncontainable joy? John Ortberg writes in The Life You've Always Wanted that he imagines God saying to the sun each day, with the innocence and joy of a child, "Do it again," shine another day (62). And why not to the stars as well? To God, they have never grown dusty--each morning, each evening, like the first day, He kindles fire in them again, calling them by their individual name, glowing them.

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them

God told Abraham several times in Genesis that his descendants would someday be as the stars. In Genesis 15, we read that "He [God] took him outside and said, 'Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.' " God concludes His show-and-tell by reminding Abraham once again that his family will once be that numerous.

Are not we, by faith, children of Abraham? Are not we the uncountable stars burning little dots of light into the black around us?

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them

Like the stars, we each have our own name, given by an excited and fond-eyed Name-giver in a continual burst of creativity. We ourselves are evidences of God's laughter, delight, and star-counting extravagance; uniquely called and predestined and justified and glorified.

In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes:
“What can be more a man’s own than this new name which even in eternity remains a secret between God and him? And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely, that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the divine beauty better than any other creature can. Why else were individuals created, but that God, loving all infinitely, should love each differently?" (150).

And so He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.

He has given us names that each take part in His wonder. He has given us pieces of Himself, bits of His starglow. And yet though we are too many to count, His light is not reduced by a fraction--It fills the heavens so as to take away need of the sun--it is only amplified by the gift.

Snow...

Has been crawling up trees like overly-large albino catepillars, or slugs leaving trails of white mucas behind them, or sub-sandwiches pickable and munchable