Psalm 98 (…”Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
    burst into jubilant song with music;
 make music to the Lord with the harp,
    with the harp and the sound of singing,
 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
    shout for joy before the Lord, the King…”)

One of the delights of writing a blog is that people stumble across it from all over the world (hey Brazilian readers!)  I don’t know anything about you but there you are. A third of us are Christian, and we encircle this beautiful planet of ours, singing his praises. There’s never a moment of the day when God’s not hearing one of us cry, one of us shout for joy, one of us give birth, one of us giggle.

I guess I was thinking about this recently in reading this article from the Guardian last Saturday in which Canadian astronaut Cmdr Chris Hadfield describes what it’s like to recognise places on earth as they passed the window.

We’re not quite sure what happened at our service on Sunday night…I guess it was God…but it was the most beautiful, wonderful time with each other, enjoying the God we worship together. Those times are so precious. In our Anglican church it was the first Sunday in Advent, which is an aromatic mixture of anticipating Christmas, and quiet, holy reflection on how much we need someone to rescue us.

Our world needs a rescuer. I love the end-of-the-year reviews on our media, but I’m sure this year will have a particularly sober flavour as we think of ISIS, Boko Haram and the like. One thing though, I know the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. He is the shepherd, the one who knows the end from the beginning.

And I just realised that doesn’t mean telling them apart (that wouldn’t make sense!) It means that he knows how it will all end.

God doesn’t just have a bird’s-eye view, he sees all the way from heaven. His perspective takes in all time and all space. While he weeps with those who weep, he knows he will be fully united with those who want to be with him. His joy has no bounds when he sees the kind people taking care of the injured, when he hears thousands of broken hearts crying out to him as they watch the news.

We mustn’t be disheartened or afraid. We have a God who does know, and he loves us. He knows the end from the beginning. He will have his way. Evil will not prosper in the end. In his mercy he allows us all to flourish and have second, third and 1,000th chances. He is worthy of all the praise we can give. He is worthy of the praise all of us can ever give.

I’ll be waking up in 6 hours or so to praise his name. Wherever you are, we share the same planet and I thank God for you.