LAST weekend the RSPB ran the Big Garden Birdwatch, designed to get people, I think who don’t see themselves as ‘twitchers’, to glance out of the window and see something of the variety of birds we have in our gardens.

I like the idea, partly because I have found myself recently becoming something of a birdwatcher and partly because I am all for people glancing out of the window once in a while – taking the time to stop and look and take in and, I hope, wonder.

In just an hour in an average British garden, we might see a dozen or more different birds, not just ‘ordinary brown jobs’ but colourful and characterful species – bull finches, goldfinches, redwings, robins and blue tits and many more.

I have been a Christian for almost 20 years and my faith in God is strengthened and supported in many different ways. But, like most people, I sometimes doubt and wonder if God is really there.

It is then that I find that looking out of the window, or strolling by the lake, or looking at the faces of my family and friends – stopping to take in the abundance and beauty of creation, the variety within our world and the great complexity of it – makes me unable to believe it is all there by chance. Psalm 19 says ‘the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’.

So why not stop for a minute, glance out of the window, see the birds, the frost, the signs of spring already emerging, and wonder, wonder at this beautiful, complex, diverse and exciting world and the God who created it.

Rev RACHEL ROSBOROUGH, Rector, Bourton-on-the-Water with Clapton & the Rissingtons.