Up the dale


We've just come back from "up Dale" There is nothing quite like driving through Wensleydale and Swaledale, listening to Our God is an awesome God on the CD player. As we drove through mile after mile of this breathtakingly beautiful landscape a sense of wonder at the splendour of God's creatvity just kept on growing until even this was put in perspective as the next song on the CD rang out with the words

Above all powers, above all kings
Above all wonders and all created things
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
You were here before the world began

Crucified, laid behind the stone
You lived, to die rejected and alone
Like a rose trampled on the ground
You took the fall and thought of me
Above all

Later we sat in an old barn that our friends have turned into a prayer room. There is no electricity, just a few candles, the floor is covered in shingle, the walls were once whitewashed decades ago and the seating was made up of old wooden chairs. It is the antithesis of the classy, theatres of modern Christian worship seen on God TV. Yet it was just the kind of place in which I imagine Mary gave birth to the new born Jesus. In the stillness, looking out through the doorway at the hills outside Jesus spoke and I heard.

Thank you Lord