God Chose You!

(A quick personal note:  You may have noticed a lack of postings.  The last three months have been a recovery time for Donna who had surgery on her foot.  Then we capped it off with a week of flu bug nonsense... so I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.)

I'm not a science guy by any means.  But when I saw the picture taken by the Hubble telescope of "The Pillars of Creation" I was mesmerized.  I kept staring at it..."googling" it and trying to understand what I was looking at and why it had got my eye.  Here's the picture below:

This picture shows three giant columns of interstellar gas and dust.  They are named "Pillars of Creation" because the gas and dust are in a process of creating new stars while also being eroded by scorching ultraviolet light from nearby stars that have recently formed. 

Got it?  Wait...there is more.  There are stars being born deep inside those columns.  Not just some stars but massive amount of stars.  They say that our sun was probably "born" in a similar mass of gas and dust.

So we are seeing a snapshot of massive amount of stars being born.  This is happening a long, long, long way off...about 6500 light years away.  How long is a light year? One light year is 5.88 trillion miles long.  Multiply 5.88 trillion by 6500 and...well, let's just say it's a long way off.  

And how's this for size.  That first column on the left. is four light years in length.  4 X 5.88 trillion miles.  That's really long.  

You may be wondering about the title of this post "God Chose You!" and what this has to do with this picture and gigantic numbers that make your head spin just trying to think about it.
When God created the universe and this planet He could have chosen something this
massive and powerful to reflect his image.  The "Pillars of Creation" are huge beyond imagination and God is bigger and more magnificent.

God did not choose anything else in all creation to reflect His image other than people. When I saw this picture I remembered Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." 

There is something unique about you because God chose you to be a reflection of His image and not some massive, powerful display of interstellar gas and dust.  When God wants to display His exceeding riches of grace in His universe--God shows what He did in us through Jesus Christ.

Don't believe it?  Ephesians 2:4-7 says,

"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." 

"The Pillars of Creation" are sure something to behold.  But they are nothing compared to what God sees in you as His chosen in Christ Jesus.

Wow...God chose you and me.

I would love to hear any of your responses to this.  Looking forward to a great year.

John P. Holsey