I’m getting the sense that we are fed-up with lockdown, and yet we are also fearful of what might happen if it relaxes. Despite the experts’ best predictions, the honest answer is we cannot be sure. We can only see the consequences of our actions, or inactions, after the event.
This morning I read Psalm 139. You may be familiar with it. It speaks of an understanding that God knows us intimately and comprehensively, from even before our birth. That we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. It comforted me without answering all my current questions and worries.
On my morning dog-walk I often reflect on Matt 6. ‘Look at the birds… consider the flowers’, I suppose I’m taking a little longer, and we have commented before about nature just getting on with it, flourishing and continuing. Today I noticed the Lupin bank, (if you know Parkwood Springs you will know where I mean), it seems fuller than ever, the first flower spikes are forming and ready to explode into colour. The bluebells too are everywhere, a carpet of colour, of heady perfume.
I often hear the birds before I see them. A Song Thrush lifted my heart today with his varied and beautiful melody. He just sang his heart out as I watched. We also have an owl who visits at home several nights a week, in the stillness of the night, the gentle call echoes out and waits for a reply; and the greedy Goldfinches are a riot of colour as they feast on seeds from the feeder.
So Jesus told us not to worry. Some of us find that easier than others. But today let’s count our blessings. As we consider, let’s remember that the God who has known and loved us from conception, for all our numbered days, and into eternity, thinks us much more valuable than those beautiful birds and flowers. There is no place we can go where God is not, thankfully.