Hi friends and welcome to this daily encouragement from the Our Daily Bread Devotional.

Today's reading is titled The Challenge of the Stars, and it was written by Tim Gustafson.

In the early 20th century, Italian poet F.T. Marinetti launched Futurism, an artistic movement that rejected the past,

scoffed at traditional ideas of beauty, and glorified machinery instead.

In 1909, Maranetti wrote his manifesto of futurism, in which he declared contempt for women,

praised the blow with the fist, and asserted,

We want to glorify war.

The manifesto concludes, standing on the world summit, we launch once again our insolent

challenge to the stars.

Five years after Marineti's manifesto, modern warfare began in earnest. World War I did not bring glory.

Maranetti himself died in 1944. The stars, still in place, took no notice. King David

sang poetically of the stars, but with a dramatically different outlook. He wrote in Psalm 8,

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in

place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

David's question isn't one of disbelief, but of amazed humility. He knew that the God

who made the vast cosmos is indeed mindful of us. He notices every detail about us, the good, the bad,

the humble, the insolent, even the absurd. It's pointless to challenge the stars. Rather, they challenge us

to praise our Creator. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is Psalm 8.

Lord Our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? You have set your glory in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants, you have established a stronghold against your

enemies to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have

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