“Then God said, ‘Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.’ And that is what happened. God made two great lights – the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.”
Genesis 1:14-18 NLT
To be honest I don’t know who besides me may need these words of truth and encouragement, but God has put them in my mind, so I am writing them down and trusting they will get to whoever needs them. Here we are just past the halfway point in January 2022. The pandemic is still giving the world fits, people are still grumbling about politics and political leaders all over the world and a lot of people are NOT on their best behavior. This is where an article from Carey Nieuwhof appeared in my email at work. It was an interesting article about disrupting trends in 2022 that will affect all of us including church. At the end of the article was a notice of a podcast series that would dive deeper into the topics in the article. Surprise, I went looking for the podcasts and the first one sparked this devotion. For those who may not know Carey Nieuwhof is a pastor, speaker and author. His guest for this particular podcast was pastor, author, speaker Mark Sayer. I know, get on with it already.
Two things in particular stood out for me in this conversation, both from Mark Sayer. The first was something to the effect of this weird time that we find ourselves in is a reset of sorts not back to what we understand as normal, but to what normal really is. That normal is us humans being confronted by the greatness of the world around us and how small we are in it. That normal takes us back to a time where people understood there was something, someone bigger than us and that we needed that someone, just to survive. The second, followed and was the response to a question. It went something like, moving forward the church needs to stop being a star maker (referring to the rise of “rock star” pastors) who just like cosmic stars often fall. Instead, the church needs to become galaxy makers. Something like that – I’ll put the link to the podcast at the end and you can have a listen.
It's this idea of being a galaxy maker that serves as the starting point for what you are reading now. The passage of Scripture above is about when God created the sun, moon and stars – not the sun, moon and a star but lots of stars, a galaxy full of stars. He gave them purpose as well – to be signs that mark the seasons, days and years and to separate day from night and light from darkness. In researching to learn more about stars, I also discovered that all the different types of stars work together to create the elements that give our planet the exact right atmosphere for us to live. What a great purpose the galaxy and everything in it has.
Now we humans love stars – the cosmic kind and the human kind. We have all sorts of stars on the planet. Sports stars, music stars, movie stars, TV stars, corporate stars, political stars and yes even church stars. Think about it for a bit and you can probably come up with names that fit those categories. I will assume that many of us when we were younger perhaps dreamed of being some sort of star. Cosmic stars have life spans just like we do and some of them when they are dying fall. The stars here on earth are also prone to falling, not at the end of their lives – but because of… oh say, pride, power and selfishness. So what if in our world the church and all the other segments of our society that produce stars instead produced galaxies? What if we recognized that we each have a purpose on this planet and that all of our purposes are meant to work together so we can live and thrive. What if we as followers of Jesus that part of our purpose is to shine the light of God’s truth and grace to hold back the darkness of this world so the light can get in. What if we became an earthly galaxy? Now don’t get me wrong we need leaders, we need leaders who create a gravitational pull that lifts others to their purpose and place in the galaxy of our society.
Psalm 147:4 says “He counts the stars and calls them by name.” HE knows each one of our names and HE’s calling each of us to our purpose and place in His kingdom, a kingdom of light. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he writes, “The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory” (1 Corinthians 15:41). The sun, moon and stars have their own kind of glory, yet they all work together to fulfill their purpose. So it is with us as well, that's what I think anyway. We’ll each have our own kind of glory and we should all be working together to fulfill the Kingdom purpose we have been given. In another of Paul’s letters he says, “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people” (Philippians 2:14-15).
When I was young for a bit I dreamed of being a star, but it didn’t take me long to figure out I didn’t have the stuff to be a “star”. These days I don’t want to be a star, I am quite happy to be a point of light among a galaxy filled with points of light – just trying to make my little part of it a better place. I’m still working on what that means for my life, Luckily I serve a God who is more than happy to give me wisdom and guidance and to be the bright light for me to follow. What about you? Are you still trying to be a star of something? How about asking the Galaxy Maker what he wants of you and see where that journey takes you? I think it will take you to somewhere way better than earthly stardom – it’ll take you to an eternity filled with light.
A Prayer
Father – what an amazing and miraculous galaxy you made for us, it reveals much of who You are if we look with open hearts and minds. Help us desire for our lives the things You desire for them. Help us to find our purpose in Your kingdom. If we are called to “stardom” give wise and humble hearts that desire to lift others up. If we are called to just be a point of light among a galaxy filled with points of light, grant us the wisdom to thrive, finding contentment and joy while also lifting others up. In the name of Jesus who knows the name of every star and all of our names as well – amen.
Podcast: https://careynieuwhof.com/episode469/
