It is very easy for people, as one day succeeds another, to be so absorbed in the varying circumstances of their own lives and of the world around them, as to lose their awareness of that eternal life of God which forms the permanent and unchanging background of our life here, and which alone gives to it its meaning.

It is, therefore, no accident that Holy Scripture, the Word of God, puts God at the beginning, and in the centre, and at the end of all things. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and “…God created man in his own image…”, says the Old Testament (RSV, Genesis 1:1,27). “In the beginning was the Word” (that is, God the Son), says the New Testament “…and the Word was God”. “…all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (RSV, John 1:1,3).

That truth is so familiar that we often fail to see its significance. We grow up in the world and accept it without thinking. We take it for granted that there should be day and night; and sun and moon and stars; and earth and sea and sky; animals, birds and fishes; butterflies, trees and flowers; life and growth and death; and, most astonishing of all, we take our own existence for granted.

Yet all of these things, and the whole of this wonderful world and the wonderful Universe itself are deliberately designed by one Being’s mind, sustained by one Being’s power; and that one Being is the Eternal God “…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (RSV, Revelation 1:8).