Every fortnight people from a farming background, or who have a heart for the countryside in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, offer a personal reflection on faith and rural life. They hope that you will be encouraged by it.

While the longest day of the year was nearly a month ago, it provides a point of discussion in the farming calendar as we think about light and the days being on the turn. For many different reasons, light has been of importance not just to farmers but to all people for centuries.

In Genesis 1:4 the first thing that God, by His power speaks into existence, is light. A landscape artist called JMW Turner became famous for his use of light, especially in his countryside paintings, which often blazed with the heat of the sun, shimmered in moonshine, and rumbled under the weight of gathering storm clouds. Turner was a genius at capturing on canvas the creative work of God which many take for granted.

Today his work features on millions of Bank of England £20 notes, which includes a self-portrait, along with his painting of a ship called ‘The Fighting Temeraire’, a quote from Turner, ‘Light is therefore colour,’ and his signature. In our constant handling of these notes, have we missed the meaning of the story that Turner was trying to tell here?

placeholder image — A Bank of England £20 note

HMS Temeraire signifies the decline of sail and the rise of steam, as the great warship was pulled by a steam tug to be broken up. In agriculture that story is being repeated as human labour declines and gives way to the rise of robotics.

The novelist William Thackeray called Turner’s painting “as grand a painting as ever figured on the walls of any academy or came from the easel of any painter”. In 2005 it was selected as Britain’s greatest painting. How often have you studied the artwork and the story of a £20 note as you held it in your hand? Did you realise that such treasure had passed through your hands without your knowledge?

It is so easy to overlook the blessings that God has given us. In his hymn, Johnson Oatman, Jr. encourages us to count our blessings and name them one by one so that we do not take for granted what God has given to us. When we look up, don’t take for granted what we see as described in Psalm 8:1-2, “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.”

When we look around us do not take for granted the fact recorded in Psalm 147 that God feeds both man and beast. That He delights in those who fear Him, trust Him, and put their hope in His unfailing love. Do not take for granted the greatest story of all time that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life, died for our sins and rose again from the dead.

It is a story you have read over the years in this column; it is one that you have read about in the Bible, and you have heard from preachers. It is one that is written on a Gospel tract that you still have. May you be able to say personally that “The LORD is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27:1). Jesus Christ is the greatest and only Saviour. Become a follower of Jesus by confessing your sin to God - trust in Jesus and you will change from a sinner to a saint, from darkness into light.

Trevor Boyd is the minister of the congregations of Tobermore and Draperstown in the shadow of the Sperrin Mountains in County Londonderry. Married to Barbara, the father of three is a sheep breeder and previously sold animal health products across Northern Ireland.

If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.