Sky

‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’ So wrote the poet William Henry Davies, and the psalmist encourages us to do the same.

Just look! Just look at the sky, blue and gold in the daytime, silver and dark at night – or grey with thunderclouds, or streaked with the rainbow of God’s covenant love. Just look, and the Creator will be revealed throughout creation.

And as we acknowledge the order and beauty of creation, so we begin to realise that God wants us to reflect that same pattern in our lives. God’s law is an expression of the delicate, life-giving structure of God’s creation, in words that we can understand.

And though the law is developed in hundreds of individual teachings, at its heart are the two commandments recognised by Jesus as ‘the greatest’: love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, and all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself (Luke 10:27).

Our work depends fundamentally on this understanding of God’s law. We love our neighbours, in all the practical ways we can, because we love God and are inspired by the glory of a world where God’s creation functions as it should do – where the heavens tell of the glory of God.

God, you bring order out of chaos
and shape this universe according to your will.
Help us to recognise the beauty of your presence
in the world around us, and to reflect that beauty
in the way we live out your holy law of love.
Amen.