This Thursday, I have been invited to provide the Invocation at our annual meeting of the Association of Professional Chaplains. As a member of their Board such requests are normal, but I wanted to share a couple lines from the prayer, because they also speak to us. In it I write, “[w]e come together in a time teetering on the edge of an abyss filled with uncertainties, challenges, anxieties, and frustrations. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten our very existence, racial tensions are erupting that reveal the inequalities and injustices in our in our world today, unemployment runs rampant through our communities, and fires are raging in our western states displacing families and destroying homes and property. It is a difficult time. But in the midst of these uncertainties we also see the human spirit’s unquenchable quest for a brighter future filled with hope, joy, and love.” Yes, my brothers and sisters here at Harmony Grove, we are indeed caught up in some very difficult times, but we cannot lose hope. We must hold on to the promise that Christ rose from the dead and promised to be with His church always. He will never leave us nor forsake us and he has given us not a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and discipline. Continue to keep our world, our nation, our church, and one another in prayer.
2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”