Friday, December 15, 2006

Vanity


Is this just the most vain gift idea you have seen? I hear this ad on the radio frequently, where you can name a star after someone you love. Aside from the sheer folly of giving a gift that is basically a name in a book somewhere, there is an issue with this that struck me today.
Can we really name stars? I see in the Bible where Adam was given the authority to name the animals. We have continued this to name plants and minerals, merely to help classify them. But naming a big ball of gas billions of light years away after your uncle because you can't think of anything else to get him seems a bit pretentious to me.

After all, the heavens for the most part are God's domain. There are very few instances in the Bible where a man exerts some control over the heavens. Elijah made the rain stop for 31/2 years, but typically the heavens are assigned grandeur and majesty. They are not a wall to pick a gift from.

Psalms 19:1 The Heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Nope, nothing in there about gift giving, or Aunt Edna.

I encourage you to go outside on a clear night, stare at the grandeur of what God created for our viewing pleasure and thank Him for that. It will make you feel pretty small. And it will make you feel very special.

1 comment:

bishopman said...

If you don't want to buy a star, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, or some oceanfront property in Oklahoma. It's just another in an endless line of scams to separate a fool from his money.