Pastor’s Corner

A Prayer a Day: Good morning,God.This morning I have been thinking about looking for you, Lord, in the regular events of life. Being out of the pattern of weekly public worship has changed about everything; I’m not sure there is actually a regular pattern of life to think about these days. Sunday has been my reboot my life day for decades. When I have wandered off your path during the week, coming into worship snaps me back. One reason I need to reboot, is my thinking goes off base. I don’t know if this is unusual, but when I get irritated by a situation or a person, sometimes, I want to keep my mad longer. When I want to hold onto my grudge, I stay completely away from gospel music, so my bad mood can be better maintained. This is not a good trait, but it’s true, sometimes I nurse a feeling of injury or refuse to forgive someone, who has offended me. I’m not going to waste our time defending my behavior, it doesn’t even matter, if my grievance has merit. You, God, have forgiven me for all the thoughtless, mean-spirited, and unacceptable behavior, that I have exhibited over my lifetime. It’s my job to evaluate others with kindness, and forgive others as you, Lord, have forgiven me. Proverbs 4:23 reads, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” Our thoughts control our lives. If we harbor thoughts of bitterness, hate, envy, and lack of forgiveness, we will never experience life in Christ. So, Lord, help us release all of our bad thinking, speaking, and behavior, so we may bring you glory and honor. Come Holy Spirit and make us sweet: amen.

A Prayer a Day: Good evening, Heavenly Father. Today I was thinking about all that has happened in just a couple of months. Imagine, the nightmare of 1.23 million people being infected with Coronavirus, 71,532 Americans have died, and 163,000 have thankfully recovered. It’s hard to imagine how many families, individuals, and communities have been negatively affected by this pandemic.This is only considering the medical aspects, not counting the lost jobs, businesses, and income. So, Lord, now people are arguing about when to reopen public places, and arguing about what rules must be in place to reopen. Lord, if you look at the television you will see people are protesting, threatening others, and stalking government officials, because they don’t like how officials are making decisions. Lord, I understand people have opposing views, which is a good thing, broadening our perspectives, and giving us a chance to reason and act on our beliefs. But, I don’t wonder, God, whether you approve of our expressing our views with hatred and threats of violence. I know you do not approve. Considering all I have read in the Bible about Jesus, I doubt you, God, are in favor of violence, or the threat of it. I remember Jesus put the ear back on the soldier, that one of his disciple cut off, while the soldiers were arresting Jesus, the day before his crucifixion. I’m sure you do not want us scaring, screaming, swearing, or pointing weapons at each other. I know that you care for each of us. I know that you, Lord, love each of us and only want good for all of us. In 1st Chronicles 17:16, we read of your love for your people. “David went into the tent he had already set up for the sacred chest. He sat there and he prayed: Lord God, my family and I don’t deserve what you have already done for us.” King David was extremely grateful for your many blessings to him and his family. We should all be grateful to you, Lord, for our many blessings. We should be grateful for what is good, instead of angry about what is not to our liking. Lord, help us be more like King David and Jesus. Help us express our feelings concisely, but without violence, threat of violence, or disrespect toward others. Help us remember Jesus went to the cross for all people, not just the ones who agree with us. Come Holy Spirit and make us more agreeable: amen.

A Prayer a Day: Good afternoon, Father God. It’s a sunny day in Springfield,Ohio. It is especially pleasing to me, because I watched the Weather Channel and the weatherman said, cool, cloudy, and rain. Based on that weather prediction, I wasn’t expecting much in the weather department. It just goes to show you, we human being are fallible and prone to getting things wrong. That’s a very good reason for us, to put our faith in your promises, Lord, instead of in other human beings’ predictions. One promise you made to us is in Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” This is a fabulous promise, that you gave to us.You, God, never promised we would not have adversity. You, God, promised to be with us and help us over life’s hurdles. We thank you, Holy God, for helping us through the uncertainty of this Coronavirus pandemic. We thank you for this perfect Spring day. Lord, send your Holy Spirit to encourage and inspire us to navigate the challenges before us. Come Holy Spirit and make us brave: amen.

A Prayer a Day: Good morning,Lord. Since I have been writing these prayers, I have been thinking more about prayer as a practice. I try to write these prayers as would pray to you, God, but it’s a challenge. As you know, Lord, usually my prayers do not involve so many words, and never punctuation.Instead, often I think of something, hold the idea in my mind, and say to you, Lord; really, really? Or I think of some good thing someone has done and I say, “Bless them, Lord!” Or I think of some horrible thing I know about, like how many women die of domestic violence, and I say to you, Lord, “I don’t see how you have the patience to watch these bullies hurt people.” Prayer is not always pleasant words or acceptable thoughts. I remember visiting a teenager in jail and telling him to pray everyday, it would help him. He said he didn’t know how to pray. I told him he knew how to pray, that he could just say; HELP! Sometimes the most honest prayer is just, “God, please help me!” Sometimes we just don’t know what to pray, because the situation, on our mind, is so complex.The Bible tells us, that when we do not have words, that the Holy Spirit prays for us. Then there is praying in silence, sitting quietly with God on your mind. After you have sat quietly for a few minutes, say amen and move on. There are breath prayers, where you assign a few words to your inhale breath and a different phrase for your exhale: so you are breathing God into your body. You can use any pair of phrases for your breath prayer. Some people use a scripture, for example; you could inhale and in your mind say; “Nothing can separate me”: on the exhale say in your mind; “From your love oh God.” Even practicing this a few minutes a day can greatly reduce your anxiety and anger. Breath prayer is pretty awesome, because you can practice it anywhere and anytime. You can practice breath prayers instead of saying or doing something, that will make you need to practice another kind of prayer: confession. Holy God, we are grateful that you are always listening for us to pray. You are like a loving earthly parent longing to hear those first words from their babies. Help us, Lord, find the peace, love, and joy you give us when we turn to you and talk to you in our own way. Heavenly Father, inspire us to try prayer with an open mind, so that you can fill our hearts and minds, with your grace, kindness, and compassion. Come Holy Spirit and teach us to pray: amen.

A Prayer a Day:Good day, Lord. Sitting on this back porch, watching the bird fly into the Purple Martin house, I must report, the birds are not practicing social distancing. I have seen about twenty birds go into that house, and I have seen no birds leave.This whole social distancing or some call it physical distancing is a terrific challenge and hardship for some. There is a wide disparity of affect, depending on a number of factors, including how many people live at your house. One church member, with a very large family, told me they laughed about who would leave to get their numbers down to ten. A number of church members are single and getting pretty tired of the isolation, of not getting out or having friends and family in. I suppose one’s level of suffering, with physical distancing, depends on how well you enjoy time alone or how well you can tolerate only spending time with one other person. Lord, we know you make us social beings. Most of us enjoy seeing, talking to, and giving a hug to our special friends and family. I know there are folks, who are happy to never hug anyone again, but I am not that person. I am a hugger. Sometimes a big hug can communicate encouragement, affection, and friendship better than a long speech. Lord, you know that there are a number of scriptures dealing with not the subject of hugging, but with kissing: five texts instruct us to greet each other with a holy kiss. I remember the father ran out to embrace and kiss the prodigal son, when he returned home. I remember Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss in the garden. Well, Lord, regardless of the Biblical basis for the practice of embracing or giving a holy kiss, those actions are definitely off limits for the near future. Heavenly Father, help us find new ways to reach out in love without touching. Help us to make that call to those we know are alone and perhaps lonely. Help us remember, what holds us together, as a community, is not hugs or kisses, but you, Lord. It is you, Holy God, who knit us together in one body. Help us show your love and grace. Come Holy Spirit and make it so: amen.

A Prayer a Day: Good morning,Lord. This morning the news was doing a story on essential and non-essential workers. It turns out the most famous and wealthy in our society, athletes, musicians, and movie stars are non-essential according to the Coronavirus quarantine guidelines. While the news report was playing I started trying to list who I thought might logically be on the essential list. I thought of doctors, nurses, medical support staff, grocery store workers, police, firemen, EMT workers, pharmacists, and nursing home staff. I checked online for the official list and found: car repair shops, gas stations, clinical workers running covid-19 tests, dentists, bus and transit drivers, truckers, farmers, sanitary workers, dentists, airport workers, janitors, and psychologists. None of the lists I read listed teachers, government officials (local, state, or federal) or clergy of any religious groups. Lord, I understand that in a pandemic situation, the goal of a quarantine is to stop the spread of a deadly virus, so the term essential means critical to the health and safety of the whole population. One thing I know, you, Lord, make a different kind of list and it lists all of us as essential. Holy Father, please be with these people on the essential list working to keep us alive. Help them to have the physical and mental health to continue doing their jobs. Everyone is under pressure, those working hard at their jobs and those stuck at home, worrying about paying their bills and feeding their families. Help us all, Lord, to encourage and support each other through this challenge. Especially, Lord, comfort the 60,000+ families, who have lost family members to death. Wrap your loving arms around the one million plus Americans, who have been infected with Coronavirus. Holy God, please help those working on medicine and a vaccine to treat the virus. You, Lord, didn’t make the essential list either, of course, it was a list of human beings and their jobs. You, Lord, are # 1 on our essential list. We love you, Lord, and couldn’t make it one day without you. Come Holy Spirit and make us strong: amen.

A Prayer a Day: Good afternoon, Heavenly Father. It’s a rainy day in Springfield,Ohio. Every drop seems to make the grass greener and the flowers bigger. Thank you, God, for the rain that cleans, feeds, and waters our earth. Today, I spent some time thinking about the point of any of us attending church.I have heard many people over the years, explain to me that there really isn’t any good reason to go to church. Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I took a two-year vacation from church attendance. Before I took this vacation,I was attending a church where the pastor, a wonderful and godly man, did not agree with me about what happens in the afterlife if a person commits suicide. The pastor and I each had strong and opposing beliefs on the subject. Lord, that is another story and another prayer. Anyway, I didn’t go to church for a couple of years.The reason I ended up going back to church, in addition to you, God, drawing me back, was how ridiculous my thinking became without people to interact with about spiritual matters. While I was home, those two years, I read my Bible, sang hymns, danced in the Spirit, and prayed frequently. It was just you and me, God, and it was heaven on earth. I read a lot about your Son, Jesus’ love for humanity. I started to think I was quite a bit like Jesus myself. While I was home not interacting with other people much, I thought I was like Jesus: we both loved everyone. One day when I was praying, you, God, sent the Holy Spirit to speak in my heart and mind and you said, “Of course, you love everyone, you are keeping everyone at a safe distance. You aren’t anything like Jesus.He hugged stinky people, ate with sinners and outcasts; he healed and helped everyone.” So, I thought about that prayer time and what you said, Lord, and I could see staying home, away from the church wasn’t making me like Jesus, it was making me delusional. So, as you know, Lord, I’ve been back in the church since 1979, as a lay woman, a licensed pastor since 1994, and an ordained Elder since 2007. Lord, help us remember you call each of us into the church, so we can do more for you, and so we can help each other keep it real. Help us, Lord, to become more like Jesus each day. Come Holy Spirit and make it so:amen.

 

A Prayer a Day: Good evening, Lord. What a  busy day it has been.  Today in our sanctuary, looking up at the exposed trusses and roof, I marvel at what a big job this sanctuary remodel has ended up being. I’m going to write a sermon about it sometime. I’ll title the sermon, “If I Knew Then What I Know Now.” When we found out our sanctuary truss system was compromised, four and one half years ago and we moved out of our sanctuary to worship in our fellowship room. I thought fixing the problem would take about one to two years. But, Lord, you have watched the whole thing, and you know, we have done our very best to raise the money and fix the problem. With your help, Lord, we raised all the money needed to replace the trusses and install a steel roof. We thought our troubles were behind us. It turns out we didn’t know, that the ceiling had issues of its own. Now, if we had known then, what we know now, we would have gotten a price from our building engineer, to drop the ceiling, all three layers of ceiling, and haul it away. I have never seen such faithful and hard-working trustees as we have at Grace Church. These folks are the “salt of the earth.” Lord, please pour a special blessing on them for all tbe hundreds of hours, they have worked to remodel your sanctuary. Ephesians 2:21, “The whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” That’s what the trustees are doing: they are making everything fit together, so that our Grace Church sanctuary will be a holy temple to you, Holy God. We know that church is not a  building, but is a people. As the song says, “I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together! All who follow Jesus all around the world. Yes, we’re the church together.” Right now, everyone is quarantined from  church worship services. Grace Church has been quarantined from our sanctuary for 4  1/2 years. But, we have never stopped being the church. Still, the sanctuary is being finished. It’s going to be beautiful.It is a tribute to you, Lord. It is a  memorial and a sacrifice of love, time, and resources given by your people to honor you. We are making it beautiful, so that we may bring more people into relationship with you, God. We pray that Jesus’ followers will be worshipping in that sanctuary another 148 years. Come Holy Spirit and make it so:amen.

A Prayer a Day: Lord, good afternoon. Today I have been thinking about the many scriptures, that say when we ask in your will, that you, God, hear us. 1John 5:14 reads, “This is the confidence that we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Also, consider Mark 11:24, “Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” These are not difficult passages, Lord, as long as we pray fairly casually. But, when we have the deepest longings of our hearts lifted up in prayer and our prayers are not answered in the way we wanted, it is hard to hold firmly to these scriptures. The first one in 1John doesn’t say that you answer our prayers with the answer we desire. It says if we ask according to your will, God, that you hear us. When our children were small and I heard them making requests to me, often for another piece of candy before bed, it was not in my will. I heard their requests, but sometimes my answer was no. Sometimes, out of my love for them, I had to tell them no. I think it must be the same with you, Lord. Sometimes, we are praying asking you for something, and out of love, and with your total knowledge and understanding of how everything in the world fits together: we pray and the answer is no. The Mark 11:24 passage says whatever we ask, believe and you will have your prayer answered. On December 8, 2017, my dear sister, Mabel, was diagnosed with 4th stage colon cancer. I have never prayed harder for anyone to be healed. She died on December 27, 2017. In the grief of her death, I have asked myself, why you, Lord, didn’t answer my prayer. It took me a while to realize, Lord, you did answer my prayer, and the answer was no to healing her body. When things like this happen, we evaluate again what we believe about your nature, Lord. I know that you answered my prayer with wisdom, grace, and mercy.Mabel died so quickly, that she missed all the suffering that she wanted so much to be spared. We love you, Lord, we know that you are our Heavenly Father, a loving parent, and sometimes you have to tell us no. Holy God, help us to trust you with decisions, that are way above our pay scale. Come Holy Spirit and make it so: amen.

A Prayer a Day: Good morning, Lord. My greetings you each morning  reminds me that I am the arbitrator of my life. I decide, when I open my eyes and have had enough coffee to wake up, what kind of day it is and will be. I may look outside to see if the sun is shining, and check the sky to see if it is clear blue with white, puffy, clouds or gray, bleak, with dark thunder clouds on the horizon. The evaluation is mine and each individual person’s. Not only do we evaluate, we set the criteria for the evaluation. Often times I am positively or negatively affected by how things look. Although, I suspect this  is a very ordinary fact of human nature to be affected by appearances, it’s not encouraged by Jesus. As followers of Jesus, we know that repeatedly in scripture, we read that we walk by faith not by sight. So, one way that we can deal with our natural tendency to evaluate the day or any situation, by how it looks, is to look inward before we look outward. Then we can develop a strong inner well of affirmations to shape our seeing, thinking, and behavior. For example, Romans 12:2 reads,”Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-God’s good, pleasing,and perfect will.” Many things happen in the course of every life. Everyday is not sunny for anyone. What we need is to look inward, not outward; when we look inward we do not see the sun at all, we see the Son. You, Holy God, have sent your Holy Spirit to dwell within us. When we remember that you, Lord, live in our hearts,  every morning, afternoon, and evening are good, regardless of external circumstances. During this pandemic we have a once in a hundred year opportunity, to draw closer to you, Lord. We have the precious gift of time to read, study, pray, and think. We have time to call an old friend, a neighbor, a fellow church member, or a family member. We are the maker of this day! Let us declare it good and move forward to put our faith in action. Come Holy Spirit and help us stand on faith: amen.