August 6, 2019

Good Morning Fellow Travelers,

Read: Psalm 103

“O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who has set thy glory above the heavens.” Psalm 8:1

In today’s Bible reading, the psalmist glorifies God from a heart simply overflowing with blessing and praise.  Verse 11 especially contains an interesting comparison, declaring that the mercy of God is as great as the distance of the heavens above the earth.  How great is that?

Scientists have measured the distance from the earth to many bodies in the heavens.  The distance to the moon is about 240 thousand miles.  The sun is about 93 million miles from the earth.  But the sun, moon, and planets are all in our solar system.  How far is it to the heavens where the stars are?

The closest star beyond the sun is Proxima Centauri, which lies 4.22 light-years away (24.7 trillion miles).  A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, at 186,300 miles per second.  So even the closest star in the heavens is a long way off.  So great is the mercy of God!

In 1977, scientists launched two space probes called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.  Voyager 1 travels 37,100 miles per hour and [at the time of this writing was] over 9 billion miles away from the earth.  If we could travel at the speed of Voyager 1, how long would it take to get to Proxima Centauri?  The trip would take 75,000 years!  These astronomical distances are hard to grasp.  But so great is the mercy of our God!

Let us take time right now to thank God for His unfathomable mercy.  There is no sin so great, no deed so dark, that the mercy of God through Christ Jesus will not forgive and forget.  Verse 17 says that the mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him.  Claim it!  And worship the Creator who is also our Savior!

~~ James Baer