For Such A Time as This August 11, 2020 – Dennis Lohr

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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.

Concerns:

  • Prayers for Joy and Randy Derck’s dear friends Steve and Roxanne Wilhoit. Steve has been diagnosed with bone cancer and they both need our prayers as they deal with this painful season. Last year, they spent the weekend with Joy and Randy and worshipped with us on Sunday morning.
  • Prayers for Kathleen Bradley’s sister-in-law, Sharon Toews (David’s sister), who has been diagnosed with nodules on her lungs and is awaiting further diagnosis and treatment options.
Joys:
  • Barb and Terry Groff became grandparents again with the birth of a new baby boy, Kipton Gibson Groff to Derek and Lauryn Groff on Thursday, July 16. He is just adorable, and his two big sisters just love him.
  • Carol Grace became a great grandmother for the fifth time on August 3 when her granddaughter Jenna gave birth to a daughter, Josie Beth Benedict. Josie lives in Charleston, SC, so for the time being visitation is limited to the Face Time app on the telephone.
Thank You: 
To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.
 
Today’s Devotion:
I wrote today’s devotion.  I hope it brings to mind the good things that the people around you are doing.
 
Shalom,
Dennis
 
Scripture - Genesis 1:31 (NRSV)
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
 
Thoughts
According to the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis, God created humans on the sixth and final day of creation.  Unlike every other day of creation, which God pronounced good, on the sixth day God declared everything “very” good, including humans.
 
You might not think that humans were a very good creation by the end of the third and fourth chapters of Genesis, where stories of disobedience, jealously and murder are told.  In fact, many of the stories throughout the Bible show humans at our worst.  Some churches spend a lot of time trying to convince us that we are totally bad and deserving of eternal punishment.  But a different look at the scriptures suggest that God continues to believe in our goodness, or even our “very” goodness.
 
Sure, we are not perfect, and we have our issues.  Sometimes we make bad choices.  Sometimes our bad choices hurt others.  Sometimes we are hurt by the bad choices that others make.  If you watch the news too much you might begin to think that the world is filled mostly with people making bad choices, with people hurting one another.  I like those news clips that tell a different story.  I actually think there are more stories of people making good choices and people helping one another, than the other way around.
 
We can focus on the negative so much that it colors our world about everything.  Or, maybe like God, at the end of our day or our week we can pause and take good look at the whole picture and think to ourselves, “You know what, taking everything into consideration, life is good, indeed it is very good.” 
 
Prayer
Dear God, Creator of all that is good, help me to see each day the goodness that you have placed in the people that surround my life.  Amen.

 

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