I took a long, deep breath of the crisp, fall air. There was proof all around that the seasons were changing and I hoped that didn't just mean the weather. I lifted my eyes to the night sky and everything stopped.
I hadn't looked up in quiet awhile. I had been busy or distracted. Maybe both. Regardless it was like seeing again for the first time in a long time.
A blanket of stars breathed a silent hello and questioned where I had been. I gazed at such beauty and wondered how I could ever forget their presence. I wondered how it could be that something so awe-inspiring was in such close reach and too often I forgot to reach for it.
It amazes me that on the darkest of nights, God uses a million dazzling stars as a canvas of hope for all to see. "Lift up your eyes on high and see Who has created these stars. The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them by name; because of His greatness of His might and of the strength of His power, not one of them is missing" (Isaiah 40:26).
I listened as the stars spoke to me. A thought sprung forth that these very stars have been there every night, whether I noticed or not. They have done their job, but my eyes have been focused in the wrong place. These stars have been faithful. Ever there. I am the one who hasn't been looking.
My heart makes the connection instantaneously but I let my mind wrap around it for a beat. I savor the prompting of the Holy Spirit because these moments don't happen all the time. It's only when I get still that He reaches down and whispers to my heart.
He tells me often but I am stubborn. I hear it again: Faith is not about seeing but about believing.
Just because I don't see the stars, doesn't mean they aren't there. Too often I can't see, so I assume. And just because I cannot see His presence, I conclude He is not there. But like a heavenly host of stars, God illuminates the world. He is always there. He is ever faithful. He is steadfast.
It is when my eyes are in the wrong place that I don't see His divine presence in my life. Not the other way around.
Take some time to lift up your eyes on a starry night and remember Who holds that light. He is there even when it doesn't feel like it. And He is as constant as the constellations. No matter what you face or where your eyes are looking remember those powerful lyrics, "Great is thy faithfulness."
Night after night, Great is thy faithfulness.
-Only Hope
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