大象传媒

A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Revd Dr Craig Gardiner, a tutor and chaplain at Cardiff Baptist College.

Good morning.

Well, what a sight that was last night - the amazing opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. For the first time ever, the celebrations moved out of the stadium and over 10,000 athletes sailed six kilometres down the River Seine, right through the heart of the city.

And everywhere you looked were the Paris Phryges: those little red hats have been a longstanding of symbol of freedom and change ever since the Revolution, and they鈥檝e have been adopted as the mascots for the Olympic and Paralympic games. They鈥檙e already bringing some important changes not least the Paralympian Phryge, with their running blade, is the first mascot with a visible disability. Together the Paris hats share one challenging motto. 鈥淎lone we go faster, but together we go further.鈥�

Most of us will know the truth of this from some experience in life. We might make fast progress on some project by ourselves, but sooner or later we need a team, a family or a community to keep us going. As the biblical writer of Ecclesiastes once wrote, 鈥淭wo are better than one, because if one falls down then the other gets you back up. It鈥檚 tough if there鈥檚 no one there to walk alongside you.鈥�

Maybe that鈥檚 why one Christian writer talks about God as the three mile an hour God. That鈥檚 our average walking speed and Kosuke Koyama thinks that this is the speed of God. Of course, God could go much faster, but chooses to walk much slower, because God is love. Someone who loves us, walks beside us, at our pace, ready to help every step of the way, because they know together, we go further.

God of the journey
Walk beside us today;
If we needlessly dally by ourselves,
Urge us on:
If we rush too quickly on our own,
Slow our feet,
Our hearts,
Our soul,
That together we might travel all the way.
Amen.