Hymn – For the Beauty of the Earth StF 102
Psalm 8 (StF 801)
O Lord , our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
It varies from year to year with the weather but usually October is the month when, in our part of the world, the Autumn colours are at their best. As the days shorten and winter approaches once again, the now-slightly-jaded green of the summer trees is transformed into a glorious display of reds, yellows and browns. In our prayers we will thank God for the beautiful colours in the natural world at this time, we will remember those for whom the world seems grey and dreary and also remember how God’s power can also transform the dull and ordinary in our own lives into glorious technicolour.
Let us pray
Father God, we thank you for the beauty of the world in which we live, for the colourful variety of plants and animals, for the ever-changing seasons and, in particular, at this time, the glorious beauty of the trees in their Autumn colours. We thank you that we are able to get out and appreciate the Autumn colours in countryside, parks and gardens – or to appreciate the colours we can see from our window.
Loving Father, we thank you that you care for all your creation and would fill our lives with colour and variety. Yet we remember those for whom life seems dull and colourless at this time.
Those working long hours in dull and boring jobs. Or whose lives seem colourless because they cannot find work.
Those for whom life seems grey and bleak – those living with pain and illness, those grieving the loss of a loved one, those beset with anxiety, those for whom every day is lonely.
And we remember those living in parts of the world where the ‘colour’ has been taken out of life by the destruction of warfare or natural disaster. Or where the beauty of the natural world has been destroyed by exploitation or pollution.
Lord, as we look at the changing colours of Autumn, help us to remember how your Spirit can transform all that is grey and colourless in our own lives, filling our lives with brilliant colour, making us the people that you want us to become.
These things we pray in Jesus name.
Amen
Maureen Baker, Local Preacher in the South East Northumberland circuit, Newcastle District
