Counting Stars

There's hardly anything as beautiful as a clear night sky full of brightly shining stars. It can be breath-taking, and it certainly is awe-inspiring. While you're gazing, you might wonder, "Just how many stars are there?" And you might be tempted to think, "There must be millions up there!"


Some estimates place the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy at approximately 100 billion. That's 100,000,000,000. Keep in mind, the Milky Way is only one of approximately 4 million galaxies for which NASA has a name. So no one really knows exactly how many stars there are. We do know it's a big number.

On a clear night, with the unaided eye, a person is able to see only a few thousand stars. Still, as I hinted above, the impression your left with is closer to what actually is than the small number you're able to see. In other words, the nature of the night sky is such that a viewer is left with the impression that outer space is vast and full of countless numbers of heavenly bodies.

Certainly this was the impression made on Abraham in the Old Testament. And, it was the impression God wanted him to be left with. Abraham had expressed concern in Genesis 15:2-3 about his not having any descendants. God told him in 15:5: "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then God drove home the awesomeness of his promise to Abraham: "So shall your offspring be."

Fascinatingly enough, it is in connection with this promise, a promise focused on the number of stars made on Day 1 of Creation and assigned their role on Day 4, that we find the first mention of "faith" in Genesis. Verse 6 says: "Abram believed the Lord, and he [the Lord] credited to him as righteousness." God loves it, to be sure, when our faith embraces His bigness.