Had you been there that very moment, watching from a distance, you wouldn’t have observed anything dramatic. I’m talking about the moment Abraham (still called Abram at the time) stepped out of his tent and gazed into the heavens, looking at the stars.

You may have heard him muttering something or other, perhaps at some point raising his hands or bowing to the ground. These gestures wouldn’t have seemed out of character to you because everyone knew Abram was a deeply pious man. And being tired, since it was the middle of the night and all, you probably would have left Abram to whatever he was doing and headed to bed.

You would not have known that this was a defining moment in Abram’s life. You certainly wouldn’t have guessed this was a defining moment in world history that would impact billions of people. Because it would have seemed so undramatic.

But that’s the way moments like these — moments that powerfully direct and shape the arc of history — often appear at first. And in this case, what made the world-changing minutes of stargazing so quietly monumental was that this old man, in the deep recesses of his heart, believed God.

Pushed Nearly Beyond Belief

To understand the profundity of this defining moment, however, we need to see how this old man’s belief had been pushed to the very brink.

It all began in Genesis 12, where God delivered to Abram a promise that would have been incredible on its own, quite apart from the fact that Abram, at age 75, and Sarai, at age 66, as yet had no children:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1–3)

So, “by faith Abraham obeyed,” packing up his household and setting out, though “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). And when he and his small tribe arrived at Shechem, God spoke to him again and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7).

Time passed. God’s blessing rested on Abram and his tribe, which included his nephew Lot’s household, and their combined possessions and herds grew larger — so large, in fact, that Abram and Lot had to separate into two tribes. Still, Abram had no offspring — the key to the fulfillment of the Lord’s greatest promise to him. Nonetheless, the Lord once again affirmed his promise (Genesis 13:14–16).

More time passed. God continued to prosper whatever Abram did. And once again, the Lord appeared to him and said,

Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great. (Genesis 15:1)

But for Abram, now in his eighties, and Sarai in her seventies, there was still the same glaring problem. Amid all the abundant blessing of prosperity God had showered on him, there was one conspicuous, crucial place of poverty: Abram still had no offspring.

Desperate Prayer of a Man of Faith

It was at this point that Abram could not contain his anguished perplexity over the ongoing void at the core of God’s promises, and it poured out in a desperate prayer:

“O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” (Genesis 15:2–3)

The apostle Paul later wrote, “No unbelief made [Abram] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20–21). But in this prayer, do we overhear Abram’s faith wavering?

No. What we’re hearing is not unbelief, but sincere perplexity. And there’s a difference. Abram’s perplexity is similar to the young virgin Mary’s perplexity when Gabriel tells her that she will “conceive in [her] womb and bear a son.” She responds, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:30, 34). It’s a reasonable question; virgins don’t get pregnant. Abram’s question is also reasonable with regard to nature; barren women past childbearing years do not get pregnant.

God was not offended or dishonored by Mary’s or Abraham’s sincere perplexity, which is why he responds to both with gracious kindness. And God’s answers are also reasonable, even if his reasonableness often extends far beyond the limits of human reason (“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14).

So, in answer to Abram’s sincerely desperate prayer, God graciously invites him to step outside.

Starry, Starry Night

God says to Abram,

“Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Here, suddenly, is a defining moment for Abram. God’s answer doesn’t include how Abram is going to obtain descendants. All God does is reaffirm, and even expand the scope of, what he has already promised. In other words, “I’m going to give you more offspring than you can count or even imagine. Do you believe me?”

And old Abram, with an old wife and a childless tent, looking up into the night sky so full of stars that in some places they looked like clouds of light, with the word of the Lord ringing in his mind, realizes that whatever God is doing is about something much bigger than he has yet grasped, and so he resolves to trust “that God [is] able to do what he [has] promised” (Romans 4:21).

[Abram] believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)

“The world would never be the same because of that moment on that starry, starry night.”

No one, not even Abram, could have seen just how history-shaping, how destiny-determining, this moment was, when a man was justified — counted righteous — in the eyes of God simply because he believed God. Because a man believed God’s promises over his own perceptions. Because a man trusted God and did not lean on his own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). The world would never be the same after that moment on that starry, starry night.

Joy Beyond Belief

I’m not saying it was smooth faith-sailing from then on for the man God renamed Abraham, “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5). It wasn’t. The Hagar and Ishmael event, as well as others, were still in the future. Isaac, the first of the promised offspring, wouldn’t be born for another fifteen years or so. And God had another defining moment in store for Abraham on the slopes of Mount Moriah. The path of faith is a rugged one, and almost always more demanding than we expect.

But after that night, Abraham did not waver in his belief that God would, somehow, do what he had promised. And God did. He made both Abraham and Sarah, and all who knew them, laugh for joy — “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8) — when Isaac was finally born. For that’s where the rugged path of faith, the hard way that leads to life (Matthew 7:14), ultimately leads: to “fullness of joy and . . . pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

“The path of faith is a rugged one, and almost always more demanding than we expect.”

God leads most of his children, who are Abraham’s children because they share Abraham’s faith (Romans 4:16), to defining moments of faith, moments when our faith is pushed nearly to a point beyond belief, or so it seems to us. These moments may not appear dramatic to others. But to us, in the deep recesses of our hearts, everything is on the line. And at these moments, everything comes down to a simple but profound, and perhaps anguishing, question: Will I trust God?

What usually isn’t apparent to us is how significant the moment is for an untold number of others. For it is often true that in “obtaining [as] the outcome of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls” (1 Peter 1:9), what also results in the years and centuries that follow is the salvation of others — so many, perhaps, that they would boggle our minds if we could see them.

When you believe God, he counts it to you as righteousness, as full acceptance from God himself. And when you believe God, it leads to the Isaac-laughter of inexpressible joy as you at last see God do for you what he has promised. And when you believe God, you will share inexpressible joy with a host of others who, because you believed, will be laughing in joy with you.

How many women, as we stand before the mirror, stand before women we find displeasing, even ugly? We think our hair thin, our skin splotchy, our shoulders sunken, our arms gangly. Even the smallest of body parts — ears, toes, molars — can chafe with critique. They are too pointy, too crooked, too yellow. Nearly every part of us could use more weight, or less weight, or a different shape or texture or color.

And how many women, as we lament the way we look, are pointed to Psalm 139 for help?

You formed my inward parts;     you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works;     my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13–14)

Maybe you let your mentor in on a battle with body image, or searched for a resource on self-loathing, or lamented your size to a friend in passing. Whatever the situation, most of us know one response by heart: “But remember Psalm 139? You are fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image! That makes you beautiful. So stop believing you’re not beautiful, start believing you are beautiful, and those problems you have with yourself will begin to go away.”

Of course, trusted counselors and solid resources will put it more gracefully and offer additional truths from Scripture. But perhaps more often than not, we’re told (and we want to be told) that our body-problems are beauty-problems. If only we could grasp how beautifully God created us and now sees us! Surely then the storm clouds of self-despair would fade before bright skies of self-esteem.

But how many women know they won’t?

Needy for More Than Beauty

It isn’t wrong to point women to Psalm 139:13–14, to declare who made them, and then to assure them how beautiful they are because of it. His glory does flood every atom of creation (Psalm 19:1), and the atoms of mankind distinctly bear his image (Genesis 1:27). Women are beautiful indeed.

Even so, the counsel moves too quickly away from God to be of lasting help. Sometimes we mistakenly believe, as Ed Welch writes, that “God’s job is to make us feel better about ourselves, as if feeling better about ourselves were our deepest need” (When People Are Big and God Is Small, 20). But thinking better of ourselves spreads as thin and short-lived a balm over our weathered souls as concealer over blemishes. The day ends, and with one swipe of a washcloth every blotch and bump and wrinkle reappears. Self-despair rears its self-focused head once more.

Because ultimately, a woman’s problem lies not in small thoughts of herself, but in too little thought of her Creator. And the solution is not to think better of her appearance, but to dwell upon her God. Women were made for everlasting worship, not daily doses of self-worth.

“Women were made for everlasting worship, not daily doses of self-worth.”

And in fact, Psalm 139:13–14 — the very passage to which we may turn for self-esteem — offers a more soul-satisfying solution to our body-struggles. Rather than using King David’s words to navel gaze, let’s contemplate the glory of God saturating these verses. He is creative, he is powerful, he is near — and he is absolutely able to so amaze us with himself that we no longer need to be beautiful. We will be too busy worshiping.

Praise Him for Inward Parts

We often turn to David’s words when we struggle with outward appearance. But have you ever noticed that the verses actually center on the parts of us we cannot see?

You formed my inward parts;     you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. (verse 13)

God did form our faces. He did knit together every strand of hair. But what kind of Maker is this, whose hands have woven “all things . . . in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16)?

If beauty is skin-deep, God’s creative power is not. The human body contains “an unimaginable wealth of detail, every point of it from the mind of God” (Derek Kidner, Psalms: 73–150, 503). The next time we stand before the bathroom vanity pinching our stomachs, what would happen if we closed our eyes, took a deep breath, and praised God for making our kidneys? By God’s grace, humans have created thousands upon thousands of medical technologies. We have yet to make a single kidney.

Psalm 139 reminds us that we serve a God who has made billions — and made them from nothing. Musicians make songs from notes they’ve learned, and woodworkers whittle away at lumber they’ve bought. But there is one Artist who was never an apprentice, and the only materials his creations require is the reality that He Is (Genesis 1:1).

And as Yahweh set about making you and me, he wielded his incomparable power with tenderness. He did not throw us together; he knit us together. He did not leave our formation to mere biological processes; he used our mothers’ wombs to bring us — exactly us — into the world. Before our first cry, he knew its pitch. For it was he who intricately wove our vocal cords into existence over the last forty weeks.

Praise Him for Every Part

With such a Creator in our sights, the need to look or feel a certain way fades. In its place stands outward-and-upward-facing praise:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works;     my soul knows it very well. (verse 14)

Note how David doesn’t pick his body apart, only thanking God for the pieces he approves. He doesn’t say, “I praise you for the way I was made — except for my height. It would be a whole lot easier to praise you if it weren’t for my height.” No, he worships God for the way he’s made David’s entire person: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” No feedback. No excuses. Just praise. For David, his whole body is indisputable evidence that God is worthy of worship.

For the God who forms our most invisible and inaccessible parts — knitting us together, cell by cell, organ by organ, in our mothers’ wombs — all his works are nothing short of wonderful. And though female souls may struggle to know it very well when it comes to ourselves, Psalm 139 exists that we might.

Praise Him — and Be Satisfied

As we praise God for his wonderful works, he gets glory, and we get joy. It will not be the fleeting pleasure of being pleased with our appearance (Proverbs 31:30). It will be the everlasting joy of the Christian who knows and loves the reason she was made: to praise her transcendent and immanent Creator God. Only his glory, and not personal beauty, can satisfy this woman.

Mysteriously enough, she will come to believe she is beautiful. She will believe it not because of what she finds in the mirror, but because her soul knows well that the God of the universe made her, loves her, died for her, rose for her, lives within her. So content is she with who he is for her in Christ that her spirit sits still, quiet, and beautiful before his eyes (1 Peter 3:3–4). The battle to believe ourselves beautiful cannot be won unless fought within the Greater War: the fight to find God more satisfying than anything else in creation.

Psalm 139 offers the kind of meditative medicine aching women most need. With its help, we can begin to comprehend the unparalleled creative power and intimacy of our God. And in grasping more of him, we set out on the (lifelong) journey of needing beauty less. There will be far too much of our Creator to see, understand, and enjoy to concern ourselves so much with ourselves.

I almost missed Harry Potter.

When the first book released on June 26, 1997 — now a quarter century ago — I was sixteen years old and consumed with American Legion baseball. That summer revolved around nine-inning games, at least three times each week, in full catcher’s gear, in the South Carolina heat and humidity. At the time, I had very little interest in reading anything, much less made-up stories about wizards and magic. Besides, I was about to be a junior in high school, and I fancied myself far too old for a book about 11-year-olds.

In the coming years, as enthusiasm for the series spread like wildfire around me, I observed with reluctance the increasing length of each volume. I’m a slow reader. Perhaps I could make time for the first book, but not thousands of pages after that. Honestly, my growing aversion to the series wasn’t the well-meaning Christian cautions about magic and wizards — but it was easy to join that chorus.

The final book appeared in 2007, at almost 800 pages. It took me fifteen years to finally take up and read the whole (1-million-word) series, which I did, aloud, to my twin boys during lockdowns and quarantines. I’m glad I did. And especially the final book.

Spiritually-Aware Stories

Something else happened along the way, after 1997, to open my mind beyond the simplistic criticism (and convenient excuse) of magical fiction: I read The Lord of the Rings. In Middle-earth, I discovered how an intentional, spiritually-aware visit to a fantasy world can have real-world value. Too many trusted and deeply Christian friends who shared my love for Gandalf and Frodo also appreciated Dumbledore and Harry. Eventually I wanted to see Hogwarts for myself, and with my sons inching closer to age appropriateness, I thought it might be a good journey to take together.

Elsewhere I’ve mentioned the roughly 100 hours it took to read the whole series aloud. I have grown to love reading aloud to our kids, and think it’s an especially good investment for dads to make in fostering life and growth apart from screens. But here, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first book, I’d like to share some of what I saw in Harry Potter, with Christian eyes, as a father, that made the long trek worthwhile.

I could recount many simple (and useful) moral takeaways — lessons, for instance, about humility, self-control, and childlikeness (not childishness) which I often paused over to drive home with my boys. But here I’ll mention just three related expressions of one great, deeper, and markedly Christian theme. (Surely, these few simple lessons will not be enough for some readers. For those who want more, I’d recommend Alan Jacob’s 2007 review of the final book, as well as Kyle Strobel’s 50-minute lecture from 2017.)

As for Christian voices still disapproving of Harry Potter on the basis of it advocating witchcraft, I’ll say this: that criticism seemed to fade after the final volume appeared in 2007. In hindsight, the lesson we might learn is that wisdom often holds judgment till the end. Be careful judging a book without its conclusion. Alan Jacobs has observed that once the series finished, the (premature) Christian concerns about magic were soon eclipsed by “another and different set of critics . . . for whom the evident traditionalism of the books is their greatest flaw” — that is, the progressives that found the conclusion “defaced by ‘heteronormativity.’”

In contrast to the final movie, the final volume contains deeply Christian themes (along with two references to Scripture) that, for many of us, demonstrates the value of the whole series.

Weakness That Shames the Powerful

However deliberate J.K. Rowling was in simply writing a great story versus a Christian one (it is often hard to separate the two), we Christians might see a fresh expression of an ancient truth, ever in need of reminders: that Jesus’s counterintuitive way triumphs over the way of the world.

“Harry comes to see the power of self-sacrificial love over the love of power.”

In other words, the key themes of the final book in particular draw together threads of the whole series, to echo how the divine ways of God are so often unexpected in the present age. The world around us, our society, has its standards and expectations for wisdom, strength, and nobility — on natural terms. But Harry, with Dumbledore’s guidance and well-timed help from his friends, comes to see the power of self-sacrificial love over the love of power.

So too is the counterintuitive way of Christ, as captured in 1 Corinthians 1:27–28:

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

In Christ, we have come to know what it means to glory in what the world sees as folly, weakness, and shame.

“Hogwarts at its best resembles how Christ builds his church, not with the world’s best and brightest.”

A first expression of this is Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s leadership. Rather than a club for the wise, strong, and pure-blooded (as some would have it), it is a refuge for all kinds, and particularly for misfits who are not welcomed and appreciated elsewhere. Outcasts like Hagrid are received, and even contribute, at Hogwarts. Jake Meador has pointed out how in this respect Hogwarts at its best resembles how Christ builds his church, not with the world’s best and brightest — the wise, strong, and noble. Outcasts and untouchables find welcome at Hogwarts, and usefulness, that they find nowhere else.

Last Enemy to Be Destroyed

A second expression comes in the theme of death, one of the series’s main emphases. In the contrast between Voldemort and Harry, we’re confronted with the question, Will you dedicate your life to avoiding death at all costs, or look to life beyond it and embrace it when your time comes?

When the time came, Christ did not avoid death, but embraced it, and conquered it on the other side. He went through death, not around it — and until his return, so do we (Hebrews 2:14–15). Remarkably, Rowling quotes 1 Corinthians 15:26, etched into the gravestone of Harry’s parents: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” At first, this confuses Harry. Noting death as the last enemy to be destroyed sounded like the dark lord and his minions. Or perhaps there’s another meaning. For us, we know Christ as risen, but death still lingers in this age. Death will be the last enemy to fall, but it will fall. Death is not only an enemy, but one that will be destroyed.

Dumbledore comments as early as the first book, “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” There is a profoundly Christian way to read in that statement what Jacobs calls “Dumbledore’s governing principle,” which is “repeatedly opposed to Voldemort’s belief that death is the worst thing imaginable and that it must therefore be mastered, ‘eaten.’”

Christ’s Way Proves Greater

Finally is the theme of power, which resonates deeply with the way the Christian gospel turns our wielding of power upside down.

First come the warnings against worldly power — from Harry’s Godfather, Sirius (“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals,” Book 4, Chapter 27), to Dumbledore’s unmasking of the insecurity of tyrants (“Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!” Book 6, Chapter 23).

In the end, it is not the natural perspective and use of power (the way of the world) that wins the war. It is the unexpected, subversive power of humility and self-sacrificial love. Of all people, are not Christians the least caught off guard by this? Our Lord “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He is the one, then, that God highly exalted and gave all authority in heaven and on earth (Philippians 2:9; Matthew 28:18). And while we may not be surprised to find this theme, it is still glorious to see it afresh in a new portrayal, and love what we have in Christ. Oh, how important to remember the surprising glory of the gospel of the God whose ways and thoughts are not ours, but his, and far superior.

I don’t have any regrets waiting 25 years to get these reminders — and just enjoy a fantastic story besides. I’m sure I was able to see (and apply) more at age 40 than I would have in my teens, or twenties. I also think I saw and enjoyed more seeing it through my boys’ 11-year-old eyes. Maybe this is the best way to navigate the darkness and light of the Potter series, with young and old journeying together.