A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.”

The recent detailed photos of Pluto inspire awe. For believers, they propel us to praise. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19). We come to understand, as John Piper said, “there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self.”

Others like Stephen Crane, who penned the poem above as well as the novel The Red Badge of Courage, felt lost in the universe. “Influenced by the Darwinism of the times, Crane viewed individuals as victims of purposeless forces and believed that they encountered only hostility in their relationships with other individuals, with society, with nature, and with God” (PoetryFoundation.org). Neglecting his own health, Crane in a weakened state contracted tuberculosis and died at 28.

Still others, when looking at the earth and sky, see no fingerprint at all, no sign of a personal or impersonal God. I understand them. In my mid-teens as I went through a depression, I would take evening walks through the countryside and stop for hours to stare at the cold waters and cold skies. I sensed no message from them. I felt starkly alone and utterly insignificant. The creation around me, rather than declaring deity, stood as silent evidence that everything was crushingly larger, more valuable, and more permanent than I.

The revelation of God is a combination of things that work together, as Brad Johnston points out in this month’s theme article. I am a beneficiary of God’s grace in giving us the written and living Word in addition to the universe around us. It was the inescapable truth of God’s Word and the indefatigable love of Christ shown through some of His people that brought me back from the precipice.

Recently on a beautiful summer evening, my wife and I walked up a hill on the north side of Pittsburgh to an observatory silhouetted by the ebbing glow of the sun. After a brief lecture we had the opportunity not only to see a large modern telescope trained toward the heavens, but also to look through an 1862 telescope at the planet Saturn. In Civil War times, there was no better telescope in America, and everyone present on this night in 2015 was gleeful that such an old telescope could clarify rings on Saturn. I felt a connection with the past and with the heavens. Leaving the observatory, I looked again at the panorama of sky and stars, focusing on that small dot that I now knew was Saturn. There was but one explanation for the beauty and truth I had witnessed. The moment was very personal, for I knew the very personal love of a glorious God for me.