For Such A Time as This June 26, 2020 – Bethany Hoffer

To the Good Folk of the Palmyra Church of the Brethren,

Joys and Concerns

If you have a joy or concern you would like us to share and pray about, please call, text or email it to me.  If you would like it included in our Sunday Worship sharing and prayer time, please share it with me that week by Friday morning.

A Joy

·  Congratulations to Curtis Gingrich and Ashley D'Alessandro, who became engaged on Tuesday evening!  A date for the wedding is being planned.  Curtis is the son of Lisa and Mike Gingrich.

Thank You:

To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.

Today’s Devotion

I am thankful to Bethany Hoffer for providing today’s devotion.  Bethany first shared this devotion on May 24th in her weekly Connect post on our website Youth Page.  If you wish to respond to Bethany directly, her email address is bhoffer@palmyracob.org .

Shalom,Dennis

Scriptures

Galatians 5:22

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness...

Hebrew 11:1

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Thoughts

What do you think about when you think of faithfulness? What does it mean to be faithful? A faithful person is dependable, loyal, and trustworthy. Faithfulness is certainly a quality that I look for in a friend. Don't we want to surround ourselves with people that we can trust and depend on?

God wants us to be faithful in our relationship with God as well, just as God is faithful to us. Hebrews chapter 11 shares many stories of our faithful ancestors. We are reminded of the faith of Noah, who built an arc and filled it with animals even when it seemed like a bizarre and outrageous idea. Noah trusted that God had a plan for him and his family and God trusted Noah to follow his command. Similarly, when God called Abraham to move to a new place, Abraham did it, without even knowing where it was he was going, because he had faith in God and trusted God. And by her faithfulness, Abraham's wife Sarah was able to bear a child long after her childbearing years, because she trusted in God's promise to her.

Hebrews 11 reminds us of many more of the great stories of faith throughout the Old Testament. Each of these stories give us examples of how to live lives of faithfulness.

This week I encourage you to consider how you are living out a life of faithfulness. Are you a person that others feel that they can trust and depend on? A person who is true to their word and loyal to their commitments? How are you being faithful to God? How are you putting trust into God's hands and how are you following in God's example?

There will be days when we doubt. This is natural and part of being a human. But I pray that we find ways to encourage and strengthen one another in our faith during these moments of doubt.

Prayer

Gracious God, thank you for your faithfulness to us.  Help us to trust in your love and care.  Help us to encourage and strengthen one another in faith during these moments of doubt.  Amen.