What Courage Sees in the Dark

In 1995, astronomer Robert Williams made a decision that many colleagues thought was foolish. 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 dark sliver no bigger than a grain of sand held at arm's length. Critics warned he was wasting hundreds of hours of precious telescope time staring at nothing.

Williams did it anyway.

When the exposure finally resolved, that "empty" patch of sky revealed over three thousand galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. What looked like darkness was actually teeming with light too distant for the naked eye to see. The Hubble Deep Field became one of the most important images in the history of astronomy.

Courage often works like this. It asks us to fix our gaze on what appears to be nothing — a calling no one else understands, a step of obedience that looks foolish, a season of waiting that feels utterly empty. The world says we are wasting our time.

But the Almighty who spoke galaxies into existence has placed more in your darkness than you can possibly see. As the psalmist wrote, "Even the darkness is not dark to You" (Psalm 139:12).

The courageous life is not lived without fear. It is lived by those willing to keep looking — trusting that the One who fills the cosmos with hidden light has not left your sky empty either.