William Shatner played Captain Kirk on the television series Star Trek, but he was unprepared for a real trip into space. He called his eleven-minute sub-orbital flight “the most profound experience I can imagine.” He stepped out of his rocket and marvelled, “To see the blue colour go right by you and now you’re staring into blackness, that’s the thing.” You “look down and there’s the blue down there and the black up there.” He added, "The beauty of that colour and it’s so thin and you’re through it in an instant."
Our planet is a blue dot surrounded by utter darkness. It’s unsettling. Shatner said that flying from blue sky into blackness was like flying into death. “In an instant, you go, ‘Whoa, that’s death!’ That’s what I saw. It was so moving to me. This experience, it’s something unbelievable.”
Shatner’s shattering flight puts life in perspective. We’re small objects in the universe, yet we’re loved by the One who created light and separated it from the darkness (Genesis 1:3–4). Our Father knows where the darkness resides and the path to its dwelling (Job 38:19–20). He “laid the earth’s foundation . . . while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy” (vv. 4–7).
Let’s trust our small lives to the God who holds the whole universe in His hands.
By Mike Wittmer
REFLECT & PRAY
What comes to mind as you consider the vastness of space? What does the night sky reveal about God?
Father, You rule this world and all that lies beyond. I trust Your powerful love.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
The Bible points to God as Creator throughout its pages. Along with the two creation accounts in Genesis 1–2, Job describes the wonders of creation (chs. 38–41). In the Psalms, David declared, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful” (Psalm 139:14). In Colossians 1:16 , Paul wrote of Jesus, “In him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” John exclaimed, “Through him all things were made” (John 1:3; see Revelation 4:11), and the author of Hebrews wrote that “the universe was formed at God’s command” (11:3).
Alyson Kieda
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