How the Scientists Took Pictures of Other Galaxies

Do you ever wonder how the creator of the universe can patiently prepare us to accomplish His will on this earth? How big is God’s creation? How much does He want us to work with Him? How much power do our prayers have? Why does God give so much weight to our daily choices and our character development?

After thinking about this all day and all night I finally realized how scientists took pictures of other galaxies. Each of the bright spots in this photo represents, apparently, galaxies containing hundreds of millions of stars.

Assuming the Hubble Deep Space documentary is true, here is how scientists took this photo.

The Hubble Telescope is the most powerful telescope in the world.
It is in space but controlled from earth.
It takes pictures and sends them back to earth.

Apparently because we live in a galaxy that has 100 billion stars (give or take 50 billion) it is very difficult to see past all the “clutter” through to the other side of our backyard. There are always more stars in the way. Apparently there are some very tiny holes we can look through. Scientists pointed the telescope at one of these empty spaces, which appears to us no larger than a grain of sand held at arms length.

In one case the Hubble scientists set the aperture of the Space Telescope to stay open for 11 whole days and nights. While the telescope made 400 complete revolutions of the earth it was positioned to look through one of these tiny holes. The photos the Hubble sent back to earth were of many, many more galaxies. They describe this photo as “the most important picture ever taken.”

To me, all of this is kind of like the concept of eternity. I don’t really get it. When I do think about it I see a very precise God, who is choosing to balance two things:

1. His perfect timing on a scale so large we cannot fathom it.

2. Working with us people.

They are like two huge gears that need to mesh.

Think about when God delivered the children of Israel from slavery:

1. God has a plan before anything happens.
2. The timing of this story does not seem too precise during the suffering, but feels very precise when it is over.
3.Even though God arranges for Moses to be very well respected, and tells him ahead of time what is going to happen, Moses still seems to waste a lot of energy on anxiousness and frustration.
4. God seems to be willing to let His people suffer unjustly for awhile, and also arranges for them get very well rewarded.

Can you see the precision of God who created the galaxies meshing with broken humanity in this story?

You will see this in your story too, when we get to the next stage in God’s plan. When things don’t make sense to me now I think of God creating a masterpiece tapestry. We get to see the back with all the loose colourful threads hanging disconnected. It is beautiful in it’s own way, but one day God will show us the other side.

Rick.

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Then the LORD said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. Genesis 15:13


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The people of Israel had lived in Egypt for 430 years. In fact, it was on the last day of the 430th year that all the Lord’s forces left the land. On this night the Lord kept his promise to bring his people out of the land of Egypt. Ex. 12:40-42a.