Future

It is my birthday in just over a week, I will celebrate and carry on. We have all experienced trials and tribulations this past year and we have coped by coming together, even if apart.

Frequently the plight of people at home or abroad will touch our lives and we’ll feel their pain and act to alleviate it and move on. Sometimes though, issues arise that are hard to move on from. I think climate change is one of them.

Like many across the world today, I am increasingly concerned about climate change and am increasingly convinced that we are in crisis. I now intentionally think about recycling and, since my time in Fiji last year, I am aware as never before of the severe environmental problems we are creating. To have faith in the future is no easy thing today.

Lamentations 3:19-33 is an expression of faith in God during a time of affliction and wandering, of bitterness and gall. The scripture constantly encourages us to trust our faithful God. The out-workings of such a faith include the exercising of good stewardship of the resources God has given us and the need to cooperate with him to ensure his will is done.

One of my predecessors as President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Rev Derek Ritchie, constantly reminded us that the one who had the first word will have the last. We know this from the Scriptures. We’ve seen evidence of it at the Cross. And we will yet see evidence of it in creation.

The anniversary of Methodist hymn writer Charles Wesley’s death is in March. I wonder what he would write about God’s creation and our stewardship of it were he alive in the present age?

Generous Creator, loving God, faithful Lord,

The consequences of climate change threaten to overwhelm us but we trust you to remain generous, loving and faithful and commit ourselves to work with you as good stewards that through us you may bless our world and its people.

Amen.

Today's contribution is adapted from an original piece by the Rev Sam McGuffin, President of the Methodist Church in Ireland at the time of writing. Sam said of himself:

'I was born in Dungannon but have lived and worked around the Methodist Connexion - north south, east and west - during 37 years of ministry. Married to Linda for just over 40 years, our three wonderful and married children have so far produced three delightful grandchildren.'