Illustration: You probably noticed it, too—the brightness of the moon. When I walk outside early each morning to walk my dogs before leaving for work, the very early mornings are normally dark, even amidst the starlight. But not this morning. The trees surrounding me appeared as clearly as if it were daylight. The moon was so bright the forest floor was washed in milky whiteness. Normally I would wear my headlamp when I take the dogs out but that was unnecessary this morning. I could clearly see the ridge to the south of our property. The limbs of the hickories and oaks limned the periphery of my steps as I watched the dogs go out into the woods for their morning routine. It was quiet. Moonlight washed over all. And the only sounds were from the dogs as they walked on the leaves. I could see our cat under the magnolia bush in the front of the house, where she perches each morning, waiting on the first birds to appear at the bird feeder when the sun rises in a couple of hours.

Slightly over every 27 days the moon orbits the earth. The precision is remarkable. I only took one astronomy class in my college days, and it blew my mind. When you study the heavens, the precision of the heavenly bodies, the rotation of earth on its axis, the ways in which the moon is used vis-à-vis the earth’s tides and rhythms, it redounds to its brilliant Creator.  

Scripture: Psalm 8 is one of the most beautiful of poems in the Old Testament book of Psalms. The first few lines read this way:

                  O LORD, our Lord,

     how majestic is your name in all the

earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens (v.1)

Then in the following verses, David makes profound observations and follows them with profound questions:

                  When I look at your heavens, the work

                            of your fingers,

                       the moon and the stars, which you

                                    have set in place,

                  what is man that you are mindful of

                               him,

                  and the son of man that you care for

                           him? (Ps 8:3-4, ESV)

Encouragement: Sometimes when it’s quiet like it was this morning, and you listen to your dogs scamper on the forest floor, and you look around at the hills suffused in moonlight, and you hear the creeks running fast below, and you see the massive trees with their limbs webbing upward towards the heavens from whence come their necessary light and rains, and you see yourself as a partaker in a script wherein the Author of the moon, the stars, the trees, the creeks, the beauty and mystery of it all calls out. Every poem has its poet; every painting has its painter; every song has its composer; every story has its writer. And every moon-bathed morning, too, has its Maker. And the Maker says, He is mindful of you.