God Is Mindful of You

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4).

David would have been familiar with studying the stars as a shepherd sitting out in fields and plains watching over his sheep at night. David explains here that as he inspects the heavens, he sees God’s “work” or handiwork. He sees “the moon and the stars” that have been “ordained by God”; they have been planned before the beginning of time to exist. David sits in this field, with no pollution in the sky, away from the busyness and the lights of the city and sees “the moon and the stars” in their full radiance.

Once you comes to grips with the awesome glory of God on display as stated by David, than you can wrestle with the question David asks in vs. 4 – “Who are we in this universe? We are so insignificant when it comes to the mass of the known and unknown universe.” God’s creation seems so much more spectacular than us.

For example, did you know?…

• If the distance between the Sun and the Earth were 1 inch, the nearest star would be 4.5 miles away.

• There are approximately 50 million known galaxies in the universe and that’s the smallest estimation.

• Each galaxy has approximately 50 thousand million to 100 thousand million stars.

• And they believe our universe has approximately 10²² stars in all the known universe.

• The star – Betelguese – is the largest known star in the universe. Its diameter is an estimated 700 million miles!

You starting to feel a little small? A drop in the bucket, as Isaiah says!

David is simple asking God, “Why do you pay attention to us?” Job asks a similar question when he wants to know Why do you even exalt us?

David says God is “mindful” of us. The word “mindful” means “to remember.” David is wondering why God would show any grace or mercy to people so insignificant; he wants to know why God would remember to do such a thing. I guess it wouldn’t be grace if God didn’t, right? And David implies that here.

God cares, provides and sympathizes with such a seemingly insignificant person. He does anything to benefit man.

And all this makes man – not glorious – but dignified in a holy way. Man is honored by God!