He Calls Them By Name
Isaiah 40:26 · Isaiah 61:1 (NIV)
Beyond the average orbit of Pluto, something has been circling the sun in the dark. This week, astronomers announced they may have found a new dwarf planet.
Rubin Observatory reports that Matthew Holman, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian, ran images from the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile through a search program he built with his colleague Kevin Napier. On October 13, the program flagged an object now called 2026 ED138. The telescope had caught it 30 times on 20 different nights. Older images from another telescope show it was there as far back as 2016.
Scientists say it is likely between 600 and 1,500 kilometers wide, about 370 to 930 miles. It is currently about 46 times as far from the sun as Earth is. It is still only a candidate. Astronomers need more measurements before they can call it a dwarf planet.
Holman checked the result carefully before trusting it. A discovery this unusual needed confirmation.
Until this month, no one had recognized it. It was there the whole time.
GOD saw it long before any telescope did. One of the psalm writers put it this way. "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name" (Psalm 147:4).
The prophet Isaiah, who spoke for GOD to Israel about seven centuries before JESUS, said the same. "Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing" (Isaiah 40:26).
Every one of them is accounted for. No world is too small or too far for HIM to know.
The verse just before Psalm 147:4 says, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds" (Psalm 147:3).
The psalm puts the two side by side on purpose. The GOD who names the farthest world is the GOD who bends close to a broken heart. The next verse explains how. "Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit" (Psalm 147:5). HIS greatness and HIS tenderness belong together.
Old wounds can return at unexpected times. Bringing them to GOD can include accepting help from a counselor, a support group, or someone we trust. Seeking that support is consistent with faith.
Isaiah described the One GOD would send. "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted" (Isaiah 61:1). He would give "a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair" (Isaiah 61:3).
Centuries later, JESUS stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth, the town where HE grew up, and read from Isaiah about good news, freedom, and the Lord's favor. Then HE sat down. "He began by saying to them, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing'" (Luke 4:21).
Some of us have been praying about an old wound for years. JESUS told a story about a widow who kept asking an unjust judge for justice. Even that judge eventually answered. JESUS then asked, "And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?" (Luke 18:7).
The story invites us to keep praying without losing heart. GOD is not an unwilling judge we must wear down. We can trust HIS goodness while we wait, without treating persistent prayer as a way to control the timing of healing.
The Sons of Korah, worship leaders in ancient Israel, prayed in Psalm 85, "Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" (Psalm 85:6). The joy they asked for comes from GOD.
A bishop named Irenaeus led the church in Lyon, in what is now France, around AD 180. In Against Heresies, Book IV, chapter 7, he wrote that Abraham "desired to see that day" when Christ would come. He described "the rejoicing of Abraham descending upon those who sprang from him." The joy of that promise is still being passed down.
The newly recognized world has a provisional designation, not yet a permanent name. It was circling all along, already known to GOD. Your wounds are known in the same way. The GOD who calls the stars by name also knows yours.
It does leave me thinking about the hurts I assumed were too old or too far out for GOD to bother with.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the one who feels unseen, HE calls each star by name.
🙏 To the one with an old wound, HE binds up the brokenhearted.
🙏 To the one who has prayed for years, HE hears you day and night.
🙏 To the one in mourning, HE gives the oil of joy.
Grace and Peace.