Look at the Stars

By David A. Sargent       Joe Barnett recently wrote about a visit with a couple that he had known in the past:     Mark and Katy were living a happy life in our community and church when they were abruptly uprooted and transferred to a remote, thinly-populated outpost in Alberta, Canada.     I stopped by to spend a night with them when a trip took me that way. We talked and laughed late into the night. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tear trickle down Katy’s cheek.     Before heading to bed, I stepped outside and was mesmerized by a breathtaking view of a pitch-black sky festooned with thousands of shimmering stars. Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t alone – Katy was leaning against the porch railing, gazing at the same sky.     “Homesick?” I asked.     “Terribly!” she said. “I miss my friends and my church. This is so far from home I feel like I’m on a different planet.”     “I come out here almost every night,” Katy said. “I like it when the stars come out; they connect me with my friends back home because they are the same stars, we used to look at together. We have a pact that we will still look at these stars together – they there, me here – and think of each other.”     Centuries ago, a prophet thought the stars provided good medicine for homesick hearts. He pointed exiled and dejected people to the stars: “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name” (Isaiah 40:26). The stars that looked down on those homesick captives in Babylon were the very same stars they had looked up at as they strolled the streets of Jerusalem in their beloved homeland. *     As soon as you can, look at the stars.  If you’re homesick, think of your loved ones and how they are viewing the same stars.  As you look at the stars, consider also the One who created them.  He knows the name of every star – and He knows and cares about you.     The Psalmist David was thinking about a star-filled sky when he wrote: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them?” – Psalm 8:3-4 NIV     The wonder of it all is that our Creator cares deeply for each of us.  He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that we can be saved from sin, receive the gift of eternal life, and look forward to spending an eternity with Him in heaven (John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 6:23; John 14:1-6).     God will save from sin and give eternal life to those who will place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  He will continue to cleanse from sin those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).     Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens.  The One who created the starry host cares about YOU and wants YOU to be a part of His forever family.

- David A. Sargent, minister for the Church of Christ at Creekwood in Mobile, Alabama, is also the editor of an electronic devotional entitled "Living Water." To learn more about this excellent resource contact David via their website: http://www.creekwoodcc.org * From “When the Stars Come Out” by Joe Barnett in On My Mind with Joe Barnett, an email publication of Pathway Evangelism, shared on June 2, 2023.