The glittering stars in the night sky are wondrous to behold. On a clear, dark night when the full majesty of the Milky Way is on full display to the naked eye, it can be more than a little tempting to just hop into a spaceship and visit some of them up close. The Voyager 1 space probe is currently traveling through interstellar space at a speed of about 38,000 miles per hour, the fastest speed of anything that humans have ever built. After traveling for almost fifty years, it is fifteen and a half billion miles from Earth. At its current speed, it would take about one hundred and fifty thousand years to get to the nearest star. The only problem is, it's not pointed at the nearest star, or at any star in particular. The glory of the stars is meant to be admired from afar. If we abandoned our solar neighborhood and devoted our whole lives to seeing one of these stars up close, then, like the Voyager 1 space probe, we would be painfully, depressingly, ridiculously short of the mark. If we had a thousand lifetimes we could never reach one of these other stars. The only thing that we could possibly do in abandoning our home and chasing after something that will always be out of reach is to transform our huge, blazing sun into another coldly glittering star that will always remain out of reach. We can never find happiness in wickedness or meaning and fulfillment outside of our Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel, just like we will never see the glory of the stars up close. But just because we will never reach the stars does not mean that we cannot appreciate their beauty and their glory from a distance. In the same way, just because we choose to be obedient to God's commandments and remain faithful to our covenants does not mean that we cannot appreciate the wonders and the marvels of this world, so long as we do not abandon the light of the Son to chase off after these sparkling stars that will only lure us away from the only attainable source of light and warmth and love. It is always fun to imagine the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but if we chase after that feeling long enough, not only will we discover there is no gold but if we've left the sun behind entirely then there are also no more rainbows. I know that God placed the stars in the night sky for a reason, but that reason was not to abandon Him and waste our lives on an impossible mission to reach one of them. Let us appreciate the glory of the stars while holding fast to the glory of the sun.
