The Tiny Blue Dot

Psalm 145:3 -- "Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom."

Even with my glasses snugly on the bridge of my nose I had to squint my eyes to see the tiny dot on the television screen. The usual and familiar Science Chanel contributors were trying to explain how "Star Trek" changed the world. Ever the Sci-Fi nerd, I was glued to the TV for about an hour as the show unfolded.

One of the most interesting segments included some info about the space probe Voyager 1. Launched in 1977 - right about the time we, the Babb family, were making the Philippines our new home - the NASA space probe has only just now broken beyond the barrier of our solar system and has begun sending faint signals from a part of space that no human being has ever seen before. It boggles the mind. In fact, in the year 2017, Voyager 1 will reach what is known as the heliosheath, THE last major boundary before it maneuvers into vast, interstellar space. We earthlings can plan on hearing from the brave little space probe that could all the way up until the year 2020! The cool thing? The thing had me squinting? NASA never intended for Voyager 1 to get as far as it has. When they realized that the probe was actually going to make it beyond our solar system some pretty quick programming had it's cameras turn and face Earth. In a kind of deep space wave good-bye to the Milky Way - Voyager 1 took a snapshot of our little planet.

View of Earth from Voyager 1

I could barely make it out on the television screen.  Earth was nothing more than a faint, light blue dot. Smaller even than the faint red glow of Mars when we look heavenward in our night sky - Earth was nothing more than a pin-prick of light.

Wow.

Just ... wow.

Thanks to the help of the powers that be at the NASA, I was looking at my neck of the woods in the great space neighborhood. It suddenly hit me. In spite of my own hang-ups about my weight .... I'm actually pretty tiny when it comes to the great scheme of things. So tiny, in fact - that I stood in awe, with the television paused, staring at the minute little spec of a dot buried in the beam of sunlight shooting out from our brightest star - the sun.

In ALL of that vastness, Jesus died on the cross for ME!

For ME, I tell you! For YOU!! For all of mankind bustling around on that floating ball, that Blue Marble in space!

All of it, every single last little spec of space dust was created by our Father. And our Father loves us SO much, that He sent HIS ONLY SON to that little pin prick of light to save us all from ourselves. How amazing is THAT?!

Indeed, our Psalmist had it right, my friends. GREAT is the Lord and MOST worthy of praise!!