A Grain of Sand and Ten Thousand Galaxies

In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many of his colleagues considered a waste of precious telescope time. He pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a tiny, seemingly empty patch of sky — a speck no larger than a grain of sand held at arm's length — and let it stare into that darkness for ten consecutive days.

What came back changed our understanding of the universe forever.

That "empty" patch of sky contained over three thousand galaxies, each one home to hundreds of billions of stars. A later follow-up image, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, revealed ten thousand more. And that was just one tiny grain of sand in a sky filled with them.

The Psalmist 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?" Every generation has looked upward and felt that holy smallness. But no generation before ours has seen just how vast the canvas of God's creation truly is.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is standing before the God who scattered ten thousand galaxies into a space the size of a sand grain and realizing that this same God knows your name, counts the hairs on your head, and calls you beloved.

That is not a God we approach with swagger. That is a God we approach with wonder.