Daily Reading: 16 February

(from www.christianaid.org.uk)

The love of the Lord never ceases.

Something to read

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

- Full reading – Lamentations 3:10-22.

Something to think about

Today, we know that the Earth that seemed to our ancestors to be unchanging, unassailable and enduring is actually in endless transition, that change is its only constant.

Of course, the changes take place on a timescale almost unimaginable to us, over millennia upon millennia, and mostly they are invisible to us, except where scientists have been able to interpret their observations.

But we also know now that the pace of change – geological, climactic, ecological - has been vastly accelerated by human activity and the evidence of that is all around us, visible and indeed unavoidable.

‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do’, wrote St Paul in another context. Humankind has not deliberately sought to degrade and destroy its habitat; mostly it has sought to improve it, for the human species at any rate.

But the determination to bend the earth to the will of humankind, to see ourselves as creator not created and the failure to recognise ourselves as a species among species, inextricably interdependent, is a judgement now being read back to us.

To be creature, one among many, is to come face to face with our limitations. We are not God, and God is not just an idealised version of us, sometimes expressed as if we had a monopoly on divine truth! God is other, and speaks to us in other voices.

Our judgement, our 'wormwood and gall' is, in truth, that which holds us most to account. This we call to mind, and therefore we have hope. For the steadfast love of our God never ceases.

Something to do

Be inspired by climate change heroes around the world. What can you do to make our world a better place for generations to come? 

Something to pray

God is good. 
On all whose lives are open to change 
from guilt to grace 
from fear to trust 
from resentment to love. 
God pronounces forgiveness and gives peace. 
Thanks be to God. 
Amen.

Today’s contributor is Kathy Galloway, a practical theologian and former co-leader of the Iona Community.