As I was clicking through some of the blogs I follow, I came upon a post in which different people were sharing their favorite documentary films. I don't usually pick a documentary as my first choice, but when I do watch them I almost always love them. Anyway, I began reading about each of the films, and I even watched a couple of trailers. One film that really caught my attention was The City Dark. This documentary is about the disappearing night sky due to light pollution, and the effect of this phenomenon on humans' physical, emotional, spiritual and even collective health. I have always been a star-gazer, so this is very interesting to me, but I was also drawn in because sleep has been a topic of much discussion in our house lately. Anyway, one of the experts (whose name I didn't catch) said this:

If our civilization didn't see the stars and see how big the universe was, would they  come to believe that they're more important in this much tinier universe (the world around them) because that's all they see?

This was very poignant to me because I have been thinking a lot about the "big picture" lately. Maybe it's because of the end of the year, or because I am truly in a state of limbo. Who knows. But that quotation really made me think about how big our world is and how small my worldview seems to be. I think generations in the past had a much deeper sense of awe when it came to the vastness of the universe, and maybe this is because there was much less here on earth distracting their view of the heavens (both figuratively and physically). Relatively early in Abram's life, God had some big news to tell him, and He did what many of us do: He used something we can see or understand to illustrate something we can't see or understand. I can just imagine God leading Abram outside and making this statement:

He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Genesis 15:5

How easy is it to get wrapped up in our tiny little universe around us? This was a great reminder that our lives are part of a bigger story that envelops the number of years we occupy this tiny planet. What if our lives aren't about us at all and they are much bigger than we ever imagined? Maybe it's time to turn off the lights and look to the heavens.