A Grain of Sand

In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many of his colleagues called reckless. As director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, he pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a tiny patch of sky that appeared completely empty — a sliver of darkness no larger than a grain of sand held at arm's length. He kept it focused there for ten straight days.

What came back changed our understanding of the universe. That "empty" patch of sky contained over three thousand galaxies — not stars, galaxies — each one home to hundreds of billions of stars. Later, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field revealed more than ten thousand galaxies in an even tinier slice of sky.

Consider what that means. Every dark corner of the night sky, every seemingly empty space above your head, is teeming with more worlds than we can count.

The Psalmist understood this long before any telescope confirmed it: "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?" (Psalm 8:3–4).

Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is standing beneath a sky filled with ten thousand galaxies you never knew were there and realizing how small your worries, your ambitions, your grievances really are — and how astonishing it is that the God who flung all of that into existence still knows your name.