While I was growing up there was a saying I remember my grandmother saying. It went life is fragile, handle with prayer. These are uncertain times that we live in, and who knows where we will be when this is printed.

I sincerely hope you are safe and well. Recently we had a text that spoke to me from Romans 5:1-5:

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

I think it is hope that lies at our hearts and hope that finally brings us together. Hope that in spite of all the devastating evidence to the contrary, the ground we stand on is holy ground because Christ walked here and walks here still. Hope that we are known, each one of us, by name, and that out of the terrible moments of our lives He will call us by our names to the lives He would have us live and the selves He would have us become.

Hope that into our worry, our secret grief and our pain and bewilderment of each of us and of our world He will come at last to heal and to save.

Our Lord loves us, He cares, and He is with us as we go about our essential jobs. He is with us as a large part of our society is asked to stay home, away from friends and family. He is with us from cancelled worship services.

Perhaps you feel God is far away. But know that the Lord is here. Feel yourself wrapped in the Holy Spirit, knowing that you are His child, and you will be safe in His arms whatever comes to pass.

Because of His love we do have faith, hope and love.

Pastor’s Podium

The Pastor’s Podium column is offered each week by a different pastor or lay person representing an Ellsworth County church.

The week’s columnist is Luke Brown, pastor of the Immanuel Lutheran Church, Ellsworth.

The I-R is seeking additional writers for the Pastor’s Podium page. We would like to have all area churches represented. The schedule is rotated so no one writes more than once every three months.

If the pastor or a lay person at your church is interested in writing for this page and is not on the schedule, please call the I-R at (785) 472-5085 for more information.

(Luke 21:28) Lift up your heads and see; your redemption is near at hand.

Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths, Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.

Good and upright is the LORD; thus he shows sinners the way.

He guides the humble to justice, he teaches the humble his way.

All the paths of the LORD are kindness and constancy toward those who keep his covenant and his decrees. The friendship of the LORD is with those who fear him, and his covenant, for their instruction.