God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.. I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your hand made sky-jewellery, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?

Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light. You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.

God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world!

(Ps 8 – the Message)

God’s glory is on tour in the skies, God-craft on exhibit across the horizon. Madame day holds classes every morning, Professor night lectures each evening.

Their words aren’t heard, their voices aren’t recorded, but their silence fills the earth; unspoken truth is spoken everywhere. God makes a huge dome for the sun – a superdome! The morning sun’s a new husband leaping from his honeymoon bed, the daybreaking sun an athlete racing to the tape.

That’s how God’s word vaults across the skies from sunrise to sunset, melting ice, scorching deserts, warming hearts to faith. The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together. The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road. The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy.

(Ps 19.1-8, the Message)

Long time readers of this page will not be surprised when yet another picture of flowers appears alongside the latest blog… you are aware that the beauty and intricacy of creation is a powerful voice to me, speaking of the awesome artist and creator whose handiwork they – and we as human beings – represent.

Today as I walked by the swollen and fast flowing river near our home, I had been pondering what to write this weekend, but the whole of creation seemed to be shouting at me, calling for full awareness and presence, for the simple joy and privilege of letting my Father’s goodness make my heart glad. Spring is one of the great blessings of living in the temperate north of Europe, that heart-stopping season when wildly varying weather continually catches us wearing too many or too few clothes, and when the washing gets extra rainwater rinses! Spring is the season when our senses are heightened to every slight breath of warmth and colour as the sun strengthens and the days lengthen. Spring is an explosion of joy and glory as the growing and breathing things around us prepare for a new growing season, and the coming of new life.

And all this comes from the inscrutable mind and boundless riches of our God. The fragile snowdrops, the imperial purple crocus with their delicate silken petals, the great peal of glory which are daffodils – all these are the gifts of God, whose loving hand has enriched us beyond belief through the beauty which is all around. His creative, artistic nature is echoed in us, his handiwork and so we respond to the beauty which he has so lavishly embedded in this little planet.

So this weekend, let me simply encourage you to let the power of God in his creation speak to you of the love, power, and attention to detail which our Lord commands! You are the beloved child of the one who knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, and who sees where the wild goats hide to give birth. You are the handiwork of the one who clothed the flowers of the field – which no human eyes see in their short lives – with incredible beauty. You are held in the powerful arms of the One whose word sustains all that has been created, who calls forth each new day and ordains the movements of planets, galaxies and universes.

These things are given in order to point us to their maker, to help us to grasp that we cannot grasp his greatness! These things are a visible representation of the boundless beauty of our God, and the power which he exercises for the fulfilment of his good purposes. These things are a continual encouragement in the face of all that grieves, all that is broken and that defies our God. All the power-hungry, vice-cherishing, self-approving, Christ-rejecting voices of humanity cannot drown out the hymn of praise which is being sung all around us today. Let us then choose to hear the praise, choose to raise our own voices and to offer our own thanks to the Lord who has revealed himself to us in Jesus. The maker of all is the Lord of love, and he calls us his children, opening his arms to welcome us home. Alleluia! Father, we are here!