These all look to you / to give them their food in
due season;
when you give to them, they gather it up; /when
you open your hand, they are filled with good things. Psalm 104:27-28
There they continued proclaiming the good news.
Acts 14:7
The
place where I work is in the middle of nowhere, in the countryside. There is a
lot of wildlife running around the place, ducks, squirrels, pheasants and even
the odd mink has been sighted. We often see them scurrying around searching for
food and look at the animals, but we forget the significance of what they are
actually doing, looking for food and that they are finding it. God has ordered
the world so that they would have food to find, their task is to find it.
Our
God, who provides for the lowliest of creatures in the world, so too provides
for us with all the complexity of our lives and our needs.
In
our lives we can often go through bad periods, times of hardship and stress,
and can lose sight of God’s role in the ordering of the world and our lives. It
can be instinctive to focus on our immediate challenges and forget the
spiritual aspect of our situations, we can abandon God like a viewer walking
out of a cinema when they are bored with the first 10 minutes of a film, we
focus on our own needs and forget that God has promised to fulfil our needs and
answer our prayers.
When
those we know are going through hard times, we have to be ready to share our
faith simply, to reassure that God will find solutions to our problems and that
he understands our needs and situations.
Loving God, as
we are reminded of the beauty of the world, the glory of nature and the wonder
of our landscapes, help us to remember that we too are a part of this world
You make us as
wonderfully complex and beautiful people in your image and you are at the
centre of our lives, even when we do not recognise it.
Help us to
observe your hand at work in the world, and to savour and celebrate your love
for us not only during the special times when we are especially aware of your
presence but during the most ordinary of days as well.
When we see
folk around us being challenged, help us to find the words of comfort to share
with those who need to hear of your love.
Dan Joseph
Metropolitan
Church
Thank you Bloggers of Chorlton for providing such a wonderful resource for our Lenten devotions and thank you to those who thought of the idea and set it up. One of the several benefits for me has been that I have felt less like a Christian living in isolation in the secular world and I am confirmed in my belief in the value of what Christians have to say in the world today.
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