Microscopes and telescopes caught my interest as I was growing up. What is not to love for a junior high kid looking through the lens of a microscope and seeing all types of crawling and creepy things? It was as if I was looking at another world within a world. As for the telescope, I stood in wonder looking through it at the vastness of the universe. I suspect that in seventh grade the word “vastness” was not in my vocabulary. “Huge” and “gigundo” are words that better describe my thinking at that time. 

Whatever the words, the lens of the microscope and the telescope gave witness to God. Microbes and stars shouted out with His praise: 

 “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy” (Psalm 96: 11-12). 

It is a pretty amazing universe when you think about, where rocks can talk and trees sing and clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12). Just the picture of that in my mind makes me laugh. I especially like the way Psalm 96:11-12 reads in the translation from The Message: “Let’s hear it from Sky, With Earth joining in, And a huge round of applause from Sea. Let Wilderness turn cartwheels, Animals, come dance, Put every tree of the forest in the choir.”
 

At the speed of light, you could travel from Earth to the center of the Milky Way in 33,000 years. It is estimated that the Milky Way contains about 100,000,000 stars. It would take you more than 3,000 years to count them at the rate of one per second! That is just our galaxy. There are thousands of others. 

 “For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary” (Psalm 96:4-6