"Keep silent in the presence of the Lord"
For humble awe best suites our attitude.
God shows his glory to us in his Word;
Such love demands our endless gratitude.

"Keep silent in the presence of the Lord"
For God knows the secret thoughts in all our hearts.
God's love to us in Christ is well assured;
God's Spirit works and moves in all our parts.

"Keep silent in the presence of the Lord"
This challenges the way we worship now.
We love to bring both the preached and sung word.
Silence is best as we before him bow.

"Keep silent in the presence of the Lord"?
But. Lord, my soul and my spirit cry out
With joy for all that you have done for me.
I cannot, cannot, from your praise forbear.

It seems incredible that the life of a human being should have any significance in the scheme of creation. Yet there is credible evidence to support our belief that the whole universe has been made to enable beings such as we are!

Whilst the Old Testament ideas put humanity in a central position, their concepts of the universe were miniscule compared to our current understanding. Whilst this has, in many quarters, served to reduce human significance. Nevertheless even in the present immensity, intelligent life is an important ingredient.

We, as Christians, need to recover that sense of awe and wonder that our Creator God has gone to so much trouble for us. Whilst we on Earth have no evidence, yet, of other intelligent life, I cannot believe we are alone. Even if the distribution is only one lot per galaxy, yet there are some thousand million galaxies!

Thus we can pray with the psalmist "May the favour of God be on us"

God has indeed been our refuge: from before time began, and will be when created time is no more.

The glory of God shines our in God's Son;
For Jesus, the Christ, our freedom has won.
The light of salvation shines out on our way
For Jesus is with us to lead, day by day.

The glory of God, God's Spirit is ours;
The Spirit of God helps all of our powers.
The spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of might
Enabling believers to live in the light.

The glory of God; God's armour to wear
The breastplate of Faith, Christ's love we will bear.
Salvation is ours, God's free gift to us all,
Enabling full life we are free from sin's thrall.

Glory to God the Creator of all;
The Father and Son whose fame does not pall.
We honour the Spirit who brightens our mind.
This glorious Threesome whose wonder we find.

The experience of the world's economic systems in the twentieth century demonstrate that the only really successful generator of wealth, in it's widest interpretation, was and is, 'free market capitalism'. We have also to recognise that this has failed to address the problems of the most vulnerable. We must also recognise that without an effective means of generating wealth there will not be the resources to help the most vulnerable.

The prime lesson of this story by Jesus is that we must work hard to generate wealth which is then used in his, Christ's, service. We have seen examples of this in the Fry and Cadbury families. The challenge to us, as Christians, is to make this message much clearer, both to ourselves and to the world.