A New Global Perspective

A bit of background:
About six weeks ago I did a project with my daughter during homeschool as part of her science lesson. I took pictures, but they were accidentally overwritten, and I didn't have time to recreate part of the project until this afternoon. We were studying the planets, and put together a scale model of the solar system. While the size of the sun and planets in the pictures below are to scale, the distance between them on the wall is not.

This is a picture of my daughter standing in the middle of the "sun." It is slightly less than 12 feet in diameter, to give you perspective.

Here are the planets on the wall in our kitchen. The pink strip hanging from the ceiling to the floor represents the sun. Mercury and Venus are so small, they are hard to see. Then you see the Earth in blue, Mars in red, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Reflections
The "planets" have been on our wall since mid-December. I left them up because I was so struck by the size and perspective that you get when you view the solar system to scale, and how the Earth appears within it. We can't escape phrases these days like "global politics," "global economics," or "global warming." It all sounds so huge and epic in size until you stop and consider what is represented in these photos. It would be very difficult to find a way to represent man "to scale" on the Earth. Even a pinprick would be too big! Remember, this is just one solar system out of who knows how many in the heavens. When I stop and consider the magnitude of what Christ did for me on the cross from this perspective, it simply staggers my mind.

"When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty!" (Psalm 8:3-5)