Tearfund Lent Devotional Day 9

Cosmic love

‘Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens…’ (Psalm 36:5, NIV)

In 2022, NASA switched on the James Webb telescope and pointed it at the cosmos. This telescope, which orbits 1 million miles above Earth’s atmosphere, can capture glimpses of distant reaches of the universe in astonishing detail.

The images it has sent back so far are breathtaking. Galaxies and nebulae, and even planets from star systems that are millions of light-years away. They are images that inspire awe and wonder. Images that show just how big the universe is, and how small we are.

And yet, stacked up against love, a galaxy is nothing.

Love is cosmic in scale. It transcends space and time. The universe is big, but love is bigger still. And we, whose lives are little more than vapour (James 4:14, KJV), are capable of love. More than that, we are made in the image of the source of love itself: the living God, who is love.

We are tiny. Yet when we love, we are cosmic.

Thank you, God, for your love. Help us to be open to that love, as well as open to sharing that love with others. Amen.

Gideon Heugh

Gideon writes for Tearfund and is a poet and environmentalist