When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end. Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places. This is nothing compared to what is coming. – Matthew 24:6-8 (The Message)
God of all creation, we look to the skies to see again your promise that you will never again destroy the world with flooding.
- And yet in the south-central United States flooding is destroying homes, businesses, habitats, and even lives. Though the spring rains give life, they can also be devastating.
- And yet at the same time India suffers under an oppressive heat wave, and many hundreds of people have died as a result.
- And yet in Japan a volcano erupted this week, causing the immediate evacuation of the residents on a small island.
Meanwhile unrest grows in so many parts of our world. ISIS and Boko Haram continue their oppressive ways. And far from the headlines, oppression is visited on women and indigenous people daily.
It can seem as though we have been left alone, forgotten, forsaken…
But we rest in your promise that you will never leave us, never forsake us.
Surround and enfold us with your Pentecost Spirit, Giver of Life. Open our eyes to sense your presence in the laughter of children, in the blush of young love, and in the wrinkled wisdom of our elders.
Fulfill your promise in us, we pray, even as we remember the words of the Apostle Paul; “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35, 37-39
In that promise we rest. In that promise we hope. In that promise we live and move and have our being. Amen and amen
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