Introduction to Zoom Prayer Meeting on January 30th, 2021@ 11:00:
This week we passed the grim milestone of 100k Covid-19 (related) deaths in the UK. That is bad enough. But we know this is a pandemic...a worldwide disease, and its effects are enormous beyond our ability to comprehend or cope with. It is just too big for us. It is a test of OUR patience and faith...even of our sanity...
The truth is we are no different from other men and women, and those found in scripture who frequently asked the Lord (and themselves) why a (terrible) thing had happened; what its meaning might be; when it would all end. Why does a man in his late thirties (with no underlying health condition) die from this disease when, remarkably, a 105 year old woman survives the illness?
I don’t know...
One church member told me this week she had been asking the Lord, “When are you going to end all of this? Mark, what do you think...when?”
I don’t know...
It seems endless and harsh and unfair. We still have work and pay our bills. Perhaps we can do neither. We still have to navigate the network of fraught family relations and educate our children. Perhaps the cracks are beginning to show. And on it goes...billions of times over.
Susan likes to watch 24 Hours in A & E. (I get a bit queasy!) In the introduction to the programme, one of the staff members speaks about those things that matter most when patients arrive in casualty, wondering whether they will live or die. The narrator says that all the other concerns of life matter so little when people are faced with such a time. All that will really matter is that you are loved and you are not alone...
Some days, most days, all I can do is hang on. Hang on to the Lord.
What else can I do? I should be much more thankful that I have been preserved this far ...and, for all that I cannot possibly know... this I do know... even if I am sick or even when I die...that I am always loved by God...and that I am never alone...and never will be!
I will not boast in anything. No gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart. His wounds have paid my ransom. (How Deep the Father’s Love for me, Townend).
“Dear God, you know and understand everything, even when I feel ill, afraid, lonely, anxious, sad or stressed. Help me now to trust you...because you love me and promise to be with me always. Amen”. (Gideon NT and Psalms)