Chasing Space Junk

by Royce

Gold just closed 2025 with its biggest annual gain in 46 years. The precious metal surged from $2,600 per ounce at the start of the year to over $4,300 by December. In early 2026, it blew past $5,000 per ounce, shattering every previous record. Everyone’s talking about gold. Central banks are stockpiling it. Investors are pouring billions into it. The headlines call it a “safe haven,” the ultimate hedge against uncertainty.

But here’s what no one’s mentioning in those breathless market reports: David was looking at gold when he asked the question that’s echoed through three thousand years.

Psalm 8:3-4 — “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 is lying in a field, staring at the night sky, asking why God would be mindful of mankind. But what was he actually looking at?

The moon he saw is made of rock and metal. The stars scattered across that ancient sky? Scientists now tell us they’re surrounded by asteroids filled with diamonds, planets where precious metals rain down, cosmic debris containing more gold than every vault on Earth combined. NASA discovered an asteroid called 16 Psyche containing enough platinum and gold to be worth $700 quintillion—enough to give every person on Earth $87.5 billion. Just one tiny dot that David gazed at is literally overflowing with what we consider precious.

Meanwhile, David is lying on grass. Leaning against a tree. Surrounded by wood and life. And here’s the cosmic joke we’ve been missing: The stars are full of diamonds. Earth is full of wood. But we haven’t found wood anywhere else in the universe.

Wood isn’t a mineral that forms under pressure. It’s a marker—physical evidence that God has been maintaining billions of invisible conditions with precision for billions of years. Every wooden object in your home is proof that God hasn’t stopped paying attention for four billion years.

The diamonds filling the stars? Those form automatically when carbon meets pressure. The gold scattered across asteroids? Leftover debris from dying stars. Precious metals don’t require attention—just collision and time. They’re cosmically abundant because they’re cosmically simple.

But life? Life requires mindfulness.

When David asked “what is mankind that you are mindful of them,” he was asking why God pays attention to us instead of to all that cosmic wealth among the stars. Because God isn’t impressed by what fills the stars. He’s invested in what marks the earth.

Those stars David saw, full of diamonds and precious metals? God scattered them across the universe not for their material value but as a navigation system for human life. He designed billions of galaxies, filled with cosmic abundance, to serve the rare thing. To make sure that even in the darkest night, a lost shepherd could find his way home.

And yet we’ve inverted the whole thing. We chase what’s scattered among the stars—possessions, wealth, material abundance—as if that’s what’s precious. We exhaust ourselves accumulating more of what asteroids are made of.

In Revelation 21, John sees the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven. The street is paved with pure gold. The foundations are decorated with every kind of precious stone. What we kill ourselves chasing, what we sacrifice our lives accumulating, what we measure our worth by—God uses as pavement.

He builds the eternal city from what fills the stars. But the ones walking those golden streets? The ones who required billions of years of sustained mindfulness? Those are the ones He came to save—and He paid for them with His blood, not with the precious stones and metals we’re chasing. Because for Him, it’s just cosmic junk.

So when we exhaust ourselves pursuing material abundance while sacrificing sleep and relationships and presence, we’re literally choosing what God doesn’t maintain over what receives His constant attention.

Personal Reflection:

• What “gold” am I accumulating that God will eventually use as pavement, while overlooking what actually requires His mindfulness?
• If God created billions of stars just to help humans navigate darkness, what does that say about His priorities versus what I’m currently pursuing?
• Where am I sacrificing what requires God’s sustained attention (rest, relationships, presence) to accumulate more cosmic debris?

Prayer:
God, David asked what mankind is that You are mindful of us, and I think I’m finally understanding. You filled the stars with what we chase—gold, diamonds, precious metals—and You’ll eventually use it all as pavement. But You’ve been maintaining the conditions for my life with precision for billions of years. Forgive me for chasing space junk while overlooking evidence of Your mindfulness. Teach me to honor what You honor. To value what requires Your sustained attention. To stop pursuing what You use for building materials and start protecting what You gave Your life to redeem. Amen.