Genesis 1:1-2 — In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

So I guess it’s pretty old hat by now, but I still love Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy”. It’s opening is brilliant, and still makes me smile every time I read it:
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. 
So which is it … is man God’s most most wonderful and important creation, or an “ape-descended life form” on “an utterly insignificant little blue green planet”?
It would be easy to be persuaded that perhaps we’re not that special after all. There’s a lot of planets. In fact there are more planets than you can begin to imagine.

The other day, though, I came across a fascinating article. You can see it at http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150515-how-weird-is-our-solar-system?ocid=global_bbccom_email_15052015_earth. It’s amazing stuff. It talks about how many planets there are … And then talks about just how odd our’s is. 

Scientists have a pretty complicated explanation for the perfect combination of circumstances that allow life to exist. Mine is simpler … I believe that God created the heavens and the earth. I think He went much further to prove how special we are. When we messed up, He did everything He could to get us back on track. In the end He sent His son to die a horrible death to pay the price for our misdeeds.

When I think of all these things together I am reminded of the wonderful hymn, “How Great Thou Art” with the words of Swedish Poet Carl Boberg:

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hand hath made.

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

 …

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,

Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;

That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,

He bled and died to take away my sin:

Man is God’s most wonderful and important creation.