A Note From Tom: October 6th, 2011

Hey everyone!

Isn’t it an awesome day?            

Oh… except for everything they’re talking about in the news today…

Whoa! Seems that unemployment is at an all-time high and rising…For those on Wall Street, it feels more like a roller coaster at Dollywood that a street in Manhattan…The Fed Chairman reported a "deterioration in the economic outlook over the summer….It is clear that, overall, the recovery…has been much less robust than we had hoped."

Yuck! Its so gloomy to hear them talk about it!  “…deterioration over the summer…much less robust than we had hoped…” It sounds more like a sports report on the overall performance of the Braves than an economic news update!

It’s stressful just to listen to them talk about it!

Matter of fact, the other night, we were listening to the news and, well…y’know how it just kinda gets you all bummed out…or even anxious…just to listen to the nightly gloomy, doom-y news they always bring on the tube?

Well… Tina hadn’t done her daily two miles yet, and we decided to go walking down our country road just as it was starting to get dark. All you could see was the first star, which is really a planet. As we walked and talked about the news, it started to get darker and darker (not the news, but the sky). By the time we were half way done, the sky was FILLED with stars…hundreds and hundreds of them! Thousands!! Down in OS, we can see more stars than you can see on the “Ridge”. They say in New York City, you see can 30 stars on a clear night. In the suburbs, you can see 300. In the country you can see up to 30,000!

But that’s just a pinch of the stars there are in our Milky Way!

We have something like 100 million billion stars in our galaxy, give or take a trillion! And there are over 100 million billion galaxies like ours out there! There’s a star called Betelguese, that is bigger in diameter than the orbit of Jupiter around the sun!

We walked and watched and wondered.

In Psalm 147, it says “He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”

Isaiah says, “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 
"My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"?

Psalm 148 says the shining stars sing His praises. Can you hear them? What if you could hear them at night?! Wouldn’t that be the coolest!? Wouldn’t you feel better about things in the morning if stars’ songs put you to sleep at night?

Whether or not you hear them, they praise Him!

He knows their number!

He knows their names!

Not one is missing!

Wanna know what the economic out-look is? “Look out!” they’re telling us.

Don’t look out.

Look up!

Seriously. Tonight, go outside and look up!

Go to bed knowing…we’re gonna be alright!