Feeling insignificant? Not to God, you're not!

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster

I am the LORD, there is no other;
I form the light, and create the darkness,
I make well-being and create woe;
I, the LORD, do all these things.

Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above,
like gentle rain let the skies drop it down.
Let the earth open and salvation bud forth;
let justice also spring up!
I, the LORD, have created this.

For thus says the LORD,
The creator of the heavens,
who is God,
The designer and maker of the earth
who established it,
Not creating it to be a waste,
but designing it be lived in:
I am the LORD, and there is no other

Is 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25

When I started to meditate on this today, I was really struck by how much God must love us. God created EVERYTHING! I saw a program on television the other day about the Hubble space telescope. Scientists have now “discovered” millions of galaxies even larger than our own Milky Way! Remember that galaxies are made up of millions of stars each. It completely overwhelms my imagination when I think about this. God has always known they were there—He created them! When you think about how He has known each one of us by name since before He created the heavens and the Earth, how can we even begin to fathom His love for us?

With this in mind, why is it so easy to feel alone or abandoned? Why does so much needless suffering and heartache occur in a world that God loves? Why do children die? Why are people oppressed? Those questions cannot be answered in a scientific or deductive manner, and it would really be a pity if they could. Faith would have no role in our lives if we could simply reason through the muddle and confusion that life often brings, finding the answers with our logic. Like Saint Ignatius at Montserrat, we must learn to lay down our swords and set off deeper into our personal faith journeys. That is where we can start learning to find Christ at work in this world and allow Him to work through us.

When we acknowledge our own powerlessness, our own inadequacies, we stand to gain something remarkable—a sense of wonder at God’s love, an appreciation for grace. This world is not perfect, we cannot explain why (although we do know that sin is the culprit), but we can work to improve it. We can do our best to make a difference everyday in whatever ways we can. To do that, though, to truly live in such a way, requires a level of faith that we must be actively pursuing: faith in action, faith driving us to action. If we can just stop trying to go through life without God and allow Him to help us work on simply being His servants, amazing things can happen. We become aware of Christ, and we yearn to be Christ for others. Every day is a chance to renew that surrender.

In rescuing us, God grants us power beyond even the stars, solar systems and galaxies—He grants us the power of love.