Today is Wednesday the 28 February, in the Second Week of Lent
Prayer of Presence:
Here I am as fully in your presence as I am able to be,
Offering my fears, my needs, my hopes, my love, and my life.
For I am yours and belong to no other.
40 Days of with Wesley by Rueben P. Job, p. 29
Scripture: Today’s reading is from Psalm 19:1-6
The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard, yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens, he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hidden from its heat.
Reflection: Some of the best sermons on the glory and majesty of God I experienced have come by the visual, wordless beauty of nature. Nature has preached to me about the glory and majesty of God as I gazed up at the stars on a clear night on highway 54 along the White Sands area of New Mexico. Nature preached about God’s glory and majesty as I looked across the vastness and chasm of the Grand Canyon, looked out to the four horizons from atop Pikes Peak, witnessed an electrical thunderstorm racing across the night sky, and when I see breath-taking pictures of the universe taken by the Hubble telescope. Nature has preached about the glory and majesty of God to me through the grandeur of the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina and the painted desert landscapes of West Texas. The beauty and majesty of God are preached when I see a rose, a sweet watermelon growing on a vine in a dusty field in South Texas, or enjoy with fascination the sight of a hummingbird hovering in front of a flower drinking its nectar.
Nature never stops preaching about the glory and majesty of God; day after day it pours forth speech. The beauty of nature has provided a platform to talk about my faith in a loving God that has done all this to create a sustainable planet for human life to flourish.
Whenever I hear nature preaching a sermon about God’s glory and majesty, I join with the Psalmist. In wonder I ask, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4)
Questions for Reflection: Remember a time when you were overwhelmed with the beauty of creation. Where were you? What did you see? Did you make any connections between what you experienced and God’s love for the world?
Prayer Focus: For the grace to hear the speechless sermons of God’s glory and majesty through the beauty and power of nature.
Concluding Prayer:
O God, our bread, our milk, and our honey;
in the resurrection of your Son, you have brought us to your table.
Feed us with your plenty, and enlarge our table for all the hungry,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Alleluia.
(John 6:35, 1 Peter 2:2; Ezequiel 3:3)
The Path - El Camino 