Thought for 15 July 2024

Psalm 90:1, 2 & 4

Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! 

Before the mountains were created, before you made the earth and the world, you are God, without beginning or end.  For you, a thousand years are as yesterday!  They are like a few hours!

If you go for a day down at Largs and look to the West, you’ll see the spectacular silhouette of the mountains of Arran.  If you look beyond Millport to the North you will see the mountains of Argyll.  There are many real beautiful parts of creation to be appreciated all around us.  We only need to look. 

I love going up to Oban or anywhere, really on the West coast of Scotland and all being well, I should be back to that part of the world in a couple of weeks’ time.  Whether you go via Loch Lomond or Callander, you aways end up at Crianlarich and then Tyndrum.  Once you’re at Tyndrum, there’s a place called the ‘Green Welly’ where you can get a bite to eat and use the facilities.  After that, you have a choice to take the shorter road to Oban via Lochawe or the longer road through Glencoe.  We usually take the longer road and once you get to Glencoe, there is a hotel called the Kings House which is a popular stopping off point on the West Highland Way.  There’s a little pond here which usually has a few red deer grazing around it and a wee river with water so clear, you can see trout swimming in it, but the reason we like stopping here is the view you get of the mountains in Glencoe.  They are truly magnificent.  It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, these mountains have a presence that seems to change as the light changes.  They look different when it is cloudy day and different again on a sunny day.  They are different when they are snow-covered and different again if it is only the summits that have snow coverage. 

These mountains have existed throughout periods of history we know something about and periods of history we know little or nothing about.  How many people through the ages have looked at these mountains awestruck by their beauty?  It is almost impossible to imagine what these locations would be like before the mountains were there but there would have been a time such as that. 

Many years ago, there would have been a time when God would have decided how the landscape should look and designed it all through his own imagination and creativity.  For us, these mountains are massive, but they only occupy a comparatively small corner of the world.  The same creative process would have been repeated by our God in every corner of this world of ours.  Just how long must that process have taken?  Yet our reading reminds us that a thousand years to our Heavenly Father is the same as a few hours to us.  We worship a God without a beginning and without an end. 

We are truly blessed in this small country of ours with the beautiful scenery, made up in part by hills and mountains the beauty of which, is appreciated by visitors from all over the world.  We may have glacial theories of how they were shaped but it was God who made them and it was Him who placed them where they are placed before any ice age occurred.  

Prayer – Heavenly Father, our minds cannot comprehend the wonders of who You are, but we praise Your wonderful name and thank you that You continually reveal Yourself to us through Your Holy Word. Help us get to know You more, love You more, and to try and be the people you would have us be.  Amen