Bob Seeger spoke for a lot of us when he wrote:

To workers I’m just another drone
To Ma Bell I’m just another phone…
A stranger in this land, I feel like a number

It’s not just sheer numbers that make us feel insignificant; it’s the sense that we don’t matter.  This can happen whether we are one of 10,000 or one of 10. Sometimes we feel like we only matter as a category:  a worker, a constituent, a customer, not as a person who is unique – not exactly like anyone else in the world.

This sense of being lost in the crowd is exactly the opposite of what the Psalmist describes as God’s relationship with creation.  The Psalmist says that God “counts the number of the stars and calls them all by their names.”  (147:4)

The psalm goes on to praise God’s care and dominion over all of creation:  the flocks and herds, the snow and dew, hail and wind.  The psalm reminds us that God’s power and love are revealed in nature, but also in giving justice to the lowly and uprooting the arrogant oppressors and in bringing healing to the broken-hearted.

As we revel in the warmth of summer and have occasion to look up at a starlit sky or watch the sunset over the lake, it’s not our smallness and insignificance that should spring to mind, but the wonder of a Creator who holds all this in the palm of his hand and yet who cares about the little ones who yearn for healing and justice.

Prayer:  Almighty God, you know all the stars by name – and me too.  Let me rest in the knowledge of that love today.  Amen