We are into the week leading up to Le Grand Départ of Le Tour de France coming through Yorkshire and… past our front door! On Friday night we’re running a special outreach international service – Bienvenue! – together with our neighbours at All Saints’ Church Ilkley.
Every day this week, we’ll be publishing an inspiring extract from the service. Today, we’re starting at home with the reflection, ‘God’s beauty on tour in Yorkshire’ – a locally inspired reflection on a global truth which also forms the current theme of our window out on to the route!
Psalm 19 in The Message says God’s glory – his beauty and his light – is on tour in the skies. That unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.
It feels like that truth is shouted here it gets so loud sometimes. So beautiful and bold. And you wonder how anyone could miss it – his hallmarked handiwork here. A gloriously deafening display of 360 degree panoramic colour that proclaims He is ALIVE. And GOOD. So good.
This truth cascades down from hills rising high with majesty and says “God is strong. Rock solid reliable. Trust him.”
It gurgles and bubbles up in streams that sometimes trickle and flow but then all of a sudden are rivers gushing and weirs almost roaring it out – “Come to the living water. He’s here. Drink deep and you’ll never go thirsty again. There’s enough and to over-flowing. Come.”
It whispers in the quiet of the spring’s bluebell-blush when you steal away for a quiet walk in the wood. But it’s still loud even there. For everything is stilled and you can hear it clearer. The still small voice that says “I am here and if I clothed these flowers with so much care, will I not also provide for you?”
And on the tops? Well up there in the wind-whip and the heather heart-land it just feels certain in a deeper way. His presence. His perspective. And you’re breathing it all in. And then it’s in surround-sound and its singing over you, “all will be well my child. All will be well”.
How could we not praise him here? When it sometimes feels like the rocks are already crying out. And all we have to do is barely listen and look for a moment to feel our hearts already responding, sometimes before we even realise to who they’re singing. “In awesome wonder we see this. In amazement we consider this. And then when we think the Creator of all this gave his life for us… and well, Saviour God here it is. Our spoken truth – how great you are, HOW GREAT YOU ARE!”