Daily Devotion 09 December 2020

Create a peaceful space to pause, and allow yourself to feel God’s presence alongside you, as near to you as your own breath. In following the reflection below, as a church we will draw closer to God and to one another as we grow in faith and deepen our sense of belonging to God.

Genesis 8: 21-22, 9:1 ‘The Rainbow Promise’

21 The Lord said in his heart… 22 ‘As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’

1 ‘I have set my bow in the clouds,
and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

Recently, when walking along the seafront I saw a wonderful rainbow which arched over the pier and then descended into the sea. Some people walking along the promenade stopped to try to take photos but most just stopped and gazed in wonder at the beautiful sight. We connect the rainbow with God’s promise to the earth after the flood and God keeps his promises. What a wonderful God we have.

Whilst our lives during 2020 have been far from normal and certainly not as we expected the year to be, the natural world has steadily progressed through the seasons as God promised. In March the trees were just coming into leaf – now, in November, these leaves have turned from green to yellow and orange and fallen to the ground, exposing the bare branches of the trees as they shut down for winter. God’s promise continues and is visible all around us.

Advent too is a time of promises. The Old Testament prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah, the Redeemer, and as we read what they said, we see some of these promises turned into reality through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. People had to wait a long time but he came as promised, though not as they expected.

We also wait for the complete fulfilment of all the promises – for when Jesus returns and his reign over all the earth will begin. We don’t know when this will be – neither did he – only God the Father does, but we can be sure that, as promised, Jesus will return because God keeps his promises. We have a truthful, honest and faithful God.

Prayer:

May our prayer be one of praise and adoration as we realise the wonder of our unchangingly faithful God in the words of the well-known hymn by Thomas Chisholm.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As thou hast been thou for ever will be. Amen.

Reflection & Prayer © 2020 Gillian Wood.
Image of rainbow over Eastbourne beach © 2020 Evan Tabraham.

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