Originally Written by Hazel Hutchinson
Tonight, I was looking at the sky. I was amazed at the number of stars that lit up the sky over my humble home here in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. I was equally amazed at how brightly each one was shining. I began to wonder how many stars are in the sky. Therefore, I did as I usually do; I went to the Internet for the answer. We all know from the “State Farm” commercial that the internet does not lie. 🙂
Being a fourth grade Science teacher I began my search onhttps://www.highlightskids.com/science which said,
“Before the invention of the telescope, astronomers counted the stars. On a clear night, far from pollution and city lights,(i.e. Big Rock, Virginia, my home 🙂 we can see 2,000 to 3,000 stars.”
Then I began to think of the stars in comparison to the number of Unreached People Groups. I continued my search by going to http://www.wmu.com , which said…
“Brilliant minds have spent countless hours carefully calculating estimates of these earth facts; it’s such interesting trivia, yet useless and irrelevant to most of us. Such as…
- Stars in the Milky Way Galaxy: 200,000,000,000
- Gallons of Fresh Water in the Great Lakes: 6,000,000,000,000,000
- Number of Grains of Sand on the Earth’s Beaches: 7,500,000,000,000,000,000
However, none of those can compare to…
- Earth’s Population (2009): 6.8 billion
- Unreached People Groups: 6,829 people groups, representing 2.74 billion people
representing those that are less than 2% evangelical Christian. - Last Frontier People Groups: 6,072 people groups, representing 1.7 billion people
representing those that have not experienced an evangelical church plant in the last 2 years.
“Wrapping your mind around this level of lostness is a challenge. Try to visualize the vast sea of faces representing the lost souls among the tribes and nations of the world, drowning in the undertow of sin and guilt.”
In closing,I do not know how many stars are in the sky. God does! I don’t guess the number really matters all that much, as long as I can enjoy their glow. What I do know is that the number of Unreached People Groups should matter greatly to each Christian. Those Unreached Peoples have not denied Christ as Peter did, because they have yet to hear about him. The heart and mind of God is clear. “Go into the entire world and preach the gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:16
So the next time you look and admire God’s creation in the sky, remember that for each star shining brightly, there is a lost soul needing to hear about the creator of those stars.
