Sunday 22nd June 2025

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind.
Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31 (NIV)

A Theatre of Wonders
Which do you find easier: to complain to – our about – God when things go wrong, or to thank him when they go well (or at least don’t go wrong)?  Even asking that question makes me realise how slow I am to thank him for the thousands of things that go well every day, due to his unseen hand quietly governing all things.

I hope you’ll permit me another quotation from John Piper’s book Providence.  It’s just that he puts these things so well, and here he draws our attention to the fact that we can fail to see that our world is ‘a theatre of wonders’ where God performs stunning, yet largely unnoticed and unthanked, providences every day, indeed every hour and minute:

“I can’t help but pause here to make an observation about the way the world responds to God’s providence.  If there is a storm at sea and an ocean liner is sunk, or if a hazardous weather condition brings down a commercial airliner and lives are lost, there is often an outcry – both publicly and in the personal grief of family members – about the failure of God to prevent the disaster (“Where was God?”).  Intense grief is real and painful and understandable from all who experience loss in these disasters …

“But where is the corresponding emotional intensity, or even mild recognition, of God’s providence when one hundred thousand airplanes land safely every day? … Where is the incessant chorus of amazement and thanks that today God provided ten million mechanical and natural and personal factors to conspire perfectly to keep these planes in the air and bring them to their desired destination safely – and most of them carrying people who neglect and demean God every day? …

“The world and even thousands of Christians give no praise and thanks to God for millions of daily, life-sustaining providences because they do not see the world as a theatre of wonders.”

Prayer
Lord, help me to see the ‘life and breath and everything else’ that come from your hand day after day, and then to thank you for them.  Help me to see your world, even in its brokenness, as a theatre in which you perform your wonders minute by minute.  Amen.

Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)