Posted on: 14th June 2023

What has God been doing in your life? Someone asked me that question a little while ago. I knew what they meant. They were asking for outward and visible signs of Grace; evidence of the work of Salvation in the world; of the building up of God’s Kingdom here on Earth - or at least in my corner of Leeds. 

A similar question was asked of me when I was chaplain to St George’s Crypt; “What miracles have you seen?” I knew what was being asked; and, indeed, could have answered in those terms. Small miracles surround the shared life of the Crypt, and big ones turn up now and again, thank God. But knowing the people there well, it seemed to me that it was often a miracle that they were walking, and talking, and leading apparently normal lives. Their lives had been surrounded by chaos and pain and neglect and abuse since the day they were born. But they could still find the grace to be kind and loving and generous. That looked like a miracle to me.

So, when I’m asked what God has been doing, I want to look a bit wider, and praise His name for the extraordinary beauty of the universe; for the unimaginable vastnesses of space; for billions of years of existence; for the gift of life, of breath, of atoms, of love. 

All of that Julian of Norwich was shown 700 years ago, when she was given a vision of something the size of a hazelnut and, asking God what it was, learned that this tiny ball was the whole universe. And she marvelled that so fragile a thing could stay in existence, and was told: “It lasteth and ever shall, for God loveth it.” 

All that we are, all that we have, our lives, our hopes - and yes, our death and our grief - all of it is in the hand of God, whose love spins the planets, whose love sustains our every moment of being. Who chose, as Jesus, to be one of us; who gives us life. Immeasurably, infinitely more than we can ask or think.

Now. What has God been doing in your life?

By Roger Quick.