*title taken from a quote by Marcus Aurelius.*

I adore the night sky. It’s grand, it’s majestic, it’s glorious. It is the crown of nature’s beauty. The stars are cause for wonderment, for dreaming, and, in the words of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne Shirley, they provide so much “scope for the imagination.” They are also sparkling examples for Christians.
We can only see stars when they shine out from the black recesses of the midnight sky; each individual point of light is made vivid by the surrounding darkness, and the darker it is, the more stars reveal themselves in the inky space, though they were always present. Stars have courses that they must follow lest they fall. They have been used by navigators to show the way for centuries. They all have names and numbers, and each one is known by their Creator. Do you see the similarities?
In a world that is so dark, so foolish, we as Christians with our wisdom from above have the opportunity to shine; and the darker this world gets, the more we are able to stand out as little points of light, guiding poor lost souls to heavenly glory. Matthew 5:16 says, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” We, like stars, are to be on display for the world’s observation.
Stars have courses that they follow, and when they stop following, they fall. I think the best example of this is the story of Adam and Eve. God gave them everything we can imagine and more, with one simple rule to follow: do not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden. That was the only restriction; but they ate of the tree anyway, and in so doing, they fell from grace. When we break from our courses, when we leave the “straight and narrow,” when we stray from the road to our eternal destinies, we fall out of God’s favor. However, we have a chance to return to our Lord by confession; but a fallen star is never offered an opportunity to return to the skies. Praise the Lord for His capacity to forgive and restore!
Psalm 147:4 says, “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” Every glittering member of the starry host has a name, and God knows each one. On a much more intimate level, God knows us individually, inside and out. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” He knows our thoughts and feelings, our plans for good and our contemplations for evil, our struggles and the triumphs He gives us. Nothing about us is unknown to Him; not one of us is a mystery to Him. He sees all, He created all, He knows all.
Ladies, another passage that seems to be knit beautifully to the theme verse, Daniel 12:3, is Titus 2:3-5, “The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” We as women can be a guiding star to the younger women and girls that look up to us. We all have people we admire and are eager to follow; and to someone, we are that person, that paragon excellent living. Let us be guiding stars leading our sisters on a pathway to heaven. Let us apply ourselves to getting wisdom and knowledge, to “working out our own salvation,” and we will each be beautiful rays of light in a midnight shaded world.