Monday, March 23rd

Today we return to an environmental theme with the Church of England’s #LiveLent:

Reading: Gen. 1:14-19
14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Reflection
We live by a natural rhythm of day and night, with that rhythm encoded in our DNA, and we know how it feels when that pattern is disrupted.

Ahead of the weekly pattern of rest we find on the seventh day (the sabbath), the fourth day in Genesis 1 sets out a daily cycle of waking and resting. Taking time on waking to dedicate our day to God and to review the day in thanksgiving and prayer before sleep is an ancient Christian tradition.

Prayer for the Week
Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed thy hand hath provided —
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

From “Great is thy faithfulness”,
by Thomas Chisholm (1866–1960)