Pastor Terry:

Wasn’t that so good, just to be able to worship together? You know what, everybody? I want to say to all the moms and all the grandmothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day. I know it wasn’t the way we thought it was going to happen. None of us could have seen this coming, but we still have so much to be grateful for, and I’m thankful. We’ve got a couple of little special things planned before I jump into the teaching, one of which is we’re going to be hearing from Phil. He wrote a special Mother’s Day song. I think it’s going to be a tremendous blessing for you. But another is connected to the fact that I’m sitting in a very different place than I normally do. Some of you are thinking, “What’s going on here and why is there an open space?” The reason there’s an open space is that I’ve got a special guest that I want to have join me right now at this moment. Here she is, Cheryl.

Cheryl:

Surprise.

Pastor Terry:

My wife of 35 years.

Cheryl:

35 years.

Pastor Terry:

Mother of four adult children. And just recently …

Cheryl:

Grandma.

Pastor Terry:

And grandmother. We just had our first grandchild, little Mike. Mike, a little beautiful guy. We’re so grateful for that. So really, this is going to be memorable. This is the first Mother’s Day that Cheryl is having with a grandchild.

This happened in a very different way than either of us could have anticipated. We still are very thankful. I thought it’d be so good to hear from Cheryl because Cheryl is not only an example of being a mom and now a grandmother, but she’s been with me and helping pastor the church for over three decades.

Cheryl:

Long time.

Pastor Terry:

Long time, yeah. Since we were 25. Young, just young.

Cheryl:

Just babies.

Pastor Terry:

She’s been a mentor to many and a guide to even more. So I wanted her to bless us and encourage us just for a few minutes before we share the song and then go to the message.

Cheryl:

Thank you, honey.

Pastor Terry:

You’re welcome.

Cheryl:

I appreciate that. I’m sure it wasn’t a surprise to you-

Pastor Terry:

Yeah, it was a surprise.

Cheryl:

… that I was the special guest because after all, this is a shelter in place. So, who else is it going to be? It’s got to be me. I’m really glad, though, to be here and celebrating Mother’s Day with all of you. In fact, this is a really unusual time for everybody.

Pastor Terry:

It is.

Cheryl:

And for us.

Pastor Terry:

It is.

Cheryl:

But there have been some things that I actually have found as hidden blessings. I would call it hidden blessings because we’ve never done this before. This is something-

Pastor Terry:

This is the first.

Cheryl:

And I’m sure that-

Pastor Terry:

We’re all doing it for the first time.

Cheryl:

Yes, that all of you are probably going, “Well, yeah. Us too.”

Pastor Terry:

We never thought we were going to have an online church. Basically, that’s what we’ve been having, though.

Cheryl:

Yes. But first time for many of you experiencing things that you thought you would never experience before. This is one of the things that we’ve enjoyed, actually having church together.

Pastor Terry:

It’s really nice.

Cheryl:

Sitting next to each other.

Pastor Terry:

Yeah. Wow.

Cheryl:

Enjoying church and-

Pastor Terry:

Get our coffee.

Cheryl:

Get our coffee.

Pastor Terry:

Go downstairs.

Cheryl:

Listen to a very familiar pastor speaking, right?

Pastor Terry:

It’s okay.

Cheryl:

That’s been something that we’ve actually enjoyed together.

Pastor Terry:

Yeah, we have actually.

Cheryl:

We are looking forward to being together with you all again in person.

Pastor Terry:

Yes, we are.

Cheryl:

So I had found something, kind of-

Pastor Terry:

You did?

Cheryl:

Yeah. Kind of unusual. But all of you, probably, many of you maybe have spent some time cleaning out your closets. Maybe a couple of times that you’ve cleaned up the same closet. I have found in the back of my closet, our closet, this baby blanket. Baby blanket, that all four of our children actually slept on.

Pastor Terry:

Wow. Wow.

Cheryl:

The same baby blanket. They went and just took them all right through the nursery, the same nursery. It brought back a lot of memories. When I looked at it, I realized how quickly time has passed. I’m sure many of you who have young kids at home, they’re probably running around right now, and it might feel a little bit like chaos, I’ll just tell you this. Look at this time as a gift because it will quickly pass by.

Pastor Terry:

Some of them are going, “Yes.”

Cheryl:

Yeah, I know. Yeah. But you know what?

Pastor Terry:

No.

Cheryl:

In fact, we were just talking about this. We said there was a last time-

Pastor Terry:

That’s true. That’s true.

Cheryl:

… that we had carried up one of our kids to bed.

Pastor Terry:

Yes, that’s true.

Cheryl:

It was the last time that we held their hand crossing the street. Maybe there’s a last time that we actually brushed their teeth. You know what? We didn’t even know it.

Pastor Terry:

No.

Cheryl:

We didn’t know that there was going to be this last time. I think if we did know that, we would have looked in that season of life much, much differently.

Pastor Terry:

That’s true.

Cheryl:

We would have embraced moments a lot more.

Pastor Terry:

Yeah. A lot of us miss those. The nature of life is we don’t really know, oh, that’s the last moment.

Cheryl:

Yeah.

Pastor Terry:

But somewhere along the way, it occurs. Maybe that’s an invitation to treasure things just a little bit more.

Cheryl:

I think so. I think we have an opportunity right now to slow down and to appreciate, and to take note.

Pastor Terry:

That’s great.

Cheryl:

So we need to be able to look at this. This is a very unusual gift. I know that some of you may go, “Well, I’m not sure I like this gift.” But you know what? This is a gift of time, to slow down and to rethink, reassess, reset and be able to have a little bit more reflection about your relationship with the Lord.

Pastor Terry:

That’s a really good point.

Cheryl:

With other people. We need to take time to take note.

Pastor Terry:

Well, I’ll tell you what, then. Can you take a little time and pray us into the next little part of our service?

Cheryl:

I think I should. I think I should because you do have a message to share.

Pastor Terry:

I do. We’ve got a song before that.

Cheryl:

And we have a song.

Pastor Terry:

So here we go.

Cheryl:

So let’s pray.

Pastor Terry:

All right.

Cheryl:

Let’s pray together.

Pastor Terry:

With gratitude in our hearts.

Cheryl:

So yes, Lord Jesus, we do pray. We pray, Lord God, we welcome you in.

Pastor Terry:

Yes, Lord.

Cheryl:

We are thankful for this day. This is the day-

Pastor Terry:

You have made.

Cheryl:

… that you have made, and we will rejoice. We have the opportunity to rejoice and to be glad in it. So, Lord, we just open up our space, our place, our home, our heart to you.

Pastor Terry:

Yes.

Cheryl:

Lord, we invite You to come in to fill us with joy, with hope. We pray, Lord God, for your presence.

Pastor Terry:

Yes, we do.

Cheryl:

As you said on this Mother’s Day, this day, Lord, where we can care and we can nurture others around us.

Pastor Terry:

We remember. We’re thankful.

Cheryl:

So thank you, Jesus.

Pastor Terry:

Yes, Lord.

Cheryl:

We say all these things in your precious name, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Pastor Terry:

Yes. Amen.

Cheryl:

All right. Take it away.

Pastor Terry:

Take it away. Wasn’t that song a blessing? One more time, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you. I know it wasn’t the Mother’s Day we were planning, but it’s okay. There’s a part of me that’s going to miss some of what we’re doing right now, and I’m looking forward to finding our way back to normalcy, whatever normalcy is going to look like on the other side of all of this. But I think there’s going to be some things that I’m actually going to miss. Some of the things that we’ve been doing. We may decide we want to keep a few of them because they’re good.

Our series is engaged. It has to do with putting our faith into action and growing things that are alive, in tangible ways. Talk about Jesus in Mathew five and how He said let your light to shine before me, before people, that may see your good works, the goodness of your life, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. How a faith that is real and vibrant, a love for Christ that is real and alive is going to need to show up. It’s inevitably going to do that. It’s just like a tree-bearing fruit. It’s going to be more than in word. It’s going to have deeds connected to it. That’s how it should be.

That’s how it should be. One of the interesting things, and there’s another complementary way of thinking about what an engaged faith is what it looks like it’s through the lens of the tension or the connectedness, or the complementary aspect of duty and devotion, or work and waiting. Or maybe put another way, I’m talking about the way in which faith shows up when it’s both lived out practically, and then at the same time, personally. So that, I guess another way of saying would be, the Christian life needs to be something we live out. We live out. It needs to be activated in goodness and selflessness. It’s selfless in nature.

It’s lived out selflessly. There was another part of the Christian life that needs to be lived into. I want us to keep that in our minds. It’s something that needs to be sat with and honored. In times of stillness and prayer, in reflection and carved out space. Times when we need to do what I often call the time for long thoughts, long thoughts, not short ones, long ones. Where we reflect on our lives and what God is saying to us. Where we’re at and how we’re doing with our priorities, what’s most meaningful. That there are times we listen to our lives with a listening ear and try to hear what the Lord would be saying to us.

The Christian life is both something we live out and bless others with. It’s also something that is to be lived into. They’re both needed. They’re both needed. In fact, they’re so intertwined they’re both needed, they’re both parts of health. Maybe there’s no account in all the scripture that illustrates this truth more eloquently, this paradox of our faith, than an incident that took place between some friends of Jesus and two women in particular. Their names are mentioned in the 10th chapter of Luke, Martha, and Mary. Mary and Martha. Their interaction with Jesus, it’s just classic.

It’s not only a wonderful connection to Mother’s Day, it’s just a great story, a great account for us wherever we are on our own walk with the Lord. One more thing about it, that marvelous passage, the exchange. It gives us one more gift. I hope we can see it as we’re walking through it. It’s a gift that’s so uniquely suited for this season that we’re all in together. It’s the gift of learning how to thrive in an anxious place. The gift of learning how to thrive in an anxious place. So let’s look at the passage. Let’s reset this. Let’s look at this. Let’s set the scene, the stage, and let’s then engage it together. It says this in Luke 10. “Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village, just he and his disciples.” We know from the other places in the gospels that the village was essentially a small town called Bethany, located on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives, just outside of Jerusalem. We’re told there that a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. Look at verse 39, “And she had a sister called Mary,” her name was Mary, “who also sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.”

We’re given a little bit of a description that there’s a dinner that’s being prepared for Jesus and his disciples. These are his friends. They’re preparing a meal. Evidently, somewhere along the way, we’re told Mary, who appears to be the younger sister for Martha, clearly was the leader of the household. They had a brother who many believe was the youngest of them all. You’ll recognize his name. I know you will. His name was Lazarus, though he’s not mentioned in this passage. That’s a different occasion.

In this particular exchange, we’re given insight into this wonderful moment where Martha and Mary are preparing a meal for Jesus. It says, “Martha was distracted.” So, Mary in verse 39, she’s just sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to his teaching. In verse 40, “But Martha was distracted. She was consumed and focused with much serving. She went up to him and she said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.'”

Boy, does that speak to us right now. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about so many things. But one thing is necessary and Mary has chosen the good portion. She has, which will not be taken away from her.” Martha, Martha, Martha, I love that. I’m just trying to imagine Jesus say that, “Martha, Martha.” How did he say it? “Martha, Martha. Martha, come on Martha.” Clearly, her legitimate concern was to be a good hostess. That was a very important thing to her. It mattered to her a lot. That’s evident. I think, in part, Martha’s identity was connected to this.

I think she took pride in it. She loved Jesus, that’s obvious. She loved Jesus. Jesus considered her a friend. He did. But Martha seemed to have the ability to be both a friend of Jesus, but at the same time, felt a certain freedom with him that others maybe didn’t always feel. Maybe they weren’t as comfortable with it and weren’t given permission to have it. But even that had limits, as we’re going to see. Martha didn’t understand those limits completely. That’s obvious. But I think she loved Jesus.

On top of her natural gifting, desire, and her leadership in the household, I think, and the way she envisioned this moment was supposed to roll out, combined with her great affection for the Lord and just wanting him to have the best that she could give, it set the table. If I can use that language for what took place. It really did. It set the table for an exchange that we’ll never forget. It has been a continual point of learning for all of us, for anyone who’s followed the Lord down the centuries, really.

I might add that as I read this, as I read it, I couldn’t help but think about wanting to have that time as well when we too can again gather. There’s something about what was happening here, being present with Christ, being present with others, sharing a meal with a large group of people, being able to gather, being able to engage, being able to have people at our homes, or be able to get to church together. All the things that we previously took for granted. Just being able to go to a restaurant together, sit together, and talk together in ways that we are accustomed to.

I just found myself connecting these themes really, even maybe more than I would have. In fact, I think what we’re going to find in the coming weeks is that this particular passage is something that we can live out of. I really have that sense, because it carries so much for us. It even means even more in light of what we’re all walking through. You’ll see this. Jesus, interestingly enough, doesn’t negate Martha’s desire or love for hospitality. He doesn’t say, Martha, what’s wrong with you? What are you doing, trying to make this meal for all of us? What he does say, though, is that you’re so anxious, Martha. Stop it.

You’re so anxious. You’re so troubled. One clearly does get the impression that Martha was irritated that she was agitated, that she was anxious and bothered. She wasn’t in a good place. She may have started a little bit frazzled, maybe things were behind schedule. I get it. I get it, totally. I’ve been around it enough to know how it works. She probably was a little more on edge. There were things that she wanted to be done. There was a particular way she wanted them done. That meant something because this is for Jesus.

So again, all makes sense to me. I imagined that Mary was helping her initially, as were a few others. No question about it. It’s definitely implied. But somewhere along the way, Mary had heard Jesus talking, maybe it was a particular moment, but she stopped what she was doing and she just sat down for a moment. She got a new place and she just, I would assume set things aside and started listening to the words of Jesus, because they were beautiful. Something obviously caught her heart.

I don’t know how long it was, we’re not told exactly. We can kind of read our way into it, but I have a feeling it was a slow thing. Martha, already a little bit agitated and tense, wondering why this isn’t being done. She told Mary to do it. The next thing she’s seeing Mary happy at the feet of Jesus, listening with a group of others to his words, when she’s supposed to be helping. I imagine maybe it started with a ‘Mary, help.’

Maybe it was, what are you doing? What are you doing? Get over here. Help me now. Maybe she dropped the dish down and said ‘help me.’ Maybe everybody got the message except Mary, just listening away. Or maybe Mary was listening and got it, and saw the nonverbal and ignored her. What? Again, for Martha, this is a time when everybody should be doing what they’re supposed to do. This is a time for everybody to be on an all-hands-on-deck moment, Mary. Hello? Mary. She didn’t say this, but that’s basically it. She said, “What are you doing?” Maybe she whispered it, I don’t know, but her sister didn’t listen.

Mary didn’t do it. Martha was not happy. Again, Mary, who we may assume had settled into a place where she just wanted to enjoy listening to Jesus for a bit. For Martha, this was an unbelievable thing that she could be doing. For Martha, it wasn’t just bordering on laziness, but it was enormously selfish in her mind. I mean, come on. Come on. The fact for Mary had settled into a place of non-work, she had been distracted from her service. Mary had settled into non-work and had been distracted from her service and was sitting at the feet of Jesus.

But in Martha’s mind, you’re being selfish. That’s right, you are selfish right now. You are leaving me to do all the work. That is wrong. That’s how she was thinking. We can go back and forth on this, a lot of people do, and we’re going to be able to sit with this a little bit more. Linger on how we think the implications work themselves out. It’s a great piece. I just want to consider for a moment what had happened.

I’d like to look at it through the lens of anxiousness and anxiety. What happened when Martha allowed this to just, I’m going to say it, to get the best of her. Because Martha, in her eyes, it’s worth noting this, in her agitated, anxious state, this is implied, really damaged the environment and robbed it of its joy. She did. If I can put it this way, in her desire to serve, she actually disturbed the peace. While she was trying to bless, she subtly undermined that blessing. Think about that for a moment. While she was trying to bless, she actually, in her own way, undermined that blessing. Or at least, hindered it with the tension and the vibe that she was bringing into the room. We can do that.

I have done it, and more than a few times, if I’m being honest. But under pressure, we can drop into a negative place. Yes, we can. We can damage moments that had, or have the potential to bring great joy, because we’re irritated, because something is bothering us, or because we’re disturbed or anxious about the things that need to get done. I look at this and think, “Wow, a lot of times we can not only damage an environment, but we can also actually damage relationships.” Indirectly, we can create hurt with people that we love. I do think there’s something for us to watch out for during this season.

A lot of us are around people more than we’re accustomed to. We might have to work extra hard at being joy bringers rather than bringing the negative. I know that’s easier said than done, but at least we can ask the Lord to help us not to undermine the blessing by being out of alignment with the Lord’s way, in that desire to give the blessing. It’s a subtle thing, but I hope we understand it. Again, another thing to be aware of is that Martha’s anxiety led her to. If you look closely, you’ll see it, it led her into negativity. She started to complain. She started to actually accuse, and she overstepped. I have no doubt in my mind that’s what she did. Again, anxiety will lead us into negativity.

That negativity can actually show up in ways that are very counterproductive and disruptive. Think about what she did. She interrupts this and she says, “Lord, don’t you care?” Think about that. We read it and think, “What? Oh.” She says, “Lord, don’t you care? Doesn’t it bother you a little bit here? Excuse me? Excuse me? Doesn’t it bother you right now that Mary is neglecting her responsibilities, and she’s leaving all the work to me? I think this should bother you. Lord, you need to stop encouraging her. You need to stop encouraging her, and I need you to tell her to help me. But you’re not listening. You are, in a way, just letting this be at a time when I think you need to be stepping up and say something.”

Wow. Now, you better be really confident to tell Jesus that, or just oblivious because that’s a huge leap to go from irritated with Mary to tell Jesus what he ought to do. Whoa. I do think that’s what happens to us. Things that would normally not be the way we would respond when we’re anxious and tense, and feeling stress and pressure, which I think some of us are feeling right now in this season. We can focus on the wrong things and then we forget who the Lord is. Yes, we do. We can become if I can say this, too casual and too familiar with sacred things. We can fall into a place where we lose sight of the holy and fall into negativity because that’s kind of what had happened here.

Martha lost sight of the holy and fell into negativity. We can do that, we can fall. When we’re anxious, we can lose sight of the holy and drop into places we shouldn’t go. That happens all the time. It might have been happening to some of us these past few weeks or days. We’re drifting into things that the Lord doesn’t want us to drift into. We are. They’re not helping us. They’re more toxic. The one that’s really dangerous at this time when we’re lonely, or we feel afraid or unsettled, or concerned or anxious, is that we try to solve that in ways that are not helpful.

Instead of honoring the things that the Lord has taught us to embrace, we drift into an unholy place. In the end, the one we’re really hurting is ourselves. Again, I think I want to just point out that anxiety unchecked can easily lead us into a negative place. That’s why we can’t live there right now. We just can’t. We cannot afford to live in a negative place. It’s just not something we can afford to do. I’m seeing this going on and I realized that that’s exactly what was happening here. God doesn’t want that. God doesn’t want that at all. I was looking at Martha and I’m saying, “Wow, Martha, what are you doing?”

Your anxiousness is just putting everybody into a negative kind of environment here. This is not good. This is not good for anybody. Yet, that’s exactly what had happened. Martha’s anxiety led her on top of that, to underestimate what I think is the most essential, to lose sight of the most meaningful. Oh, wow. That in the end, Jesus’s words were more important than a meal. That as wonderful as that meal might be, it was not just that her service and hospitality didn’t matter, because they did, it mattered a lot to Jesus. It was just that there was something even more needful than that. I suspect it was a God moment.

I suspect that what was going on here was something that she was missing.  There was something special happening, that the Lord was saying. Mary had caught it. She had. Mary caught it. She had stopped what she was doing to listen to the words that caught her heart. In a way, she was treasuring the thing that could never be taken from her. The meal was good, it really was, and I’m sure Jesus was going to appreciate it. It would be a blessing. His words at this moment are quite possible that treasure. That was the real treasure. Martha was so frazzled, so pressed, so tensed, so stressed, so anxious that she could not see what was happening.

Martha could not see she was missing something beautiful. Because of her anxiety, the good had undermined the best. That’s worth saying again, because of her anxiety, the good had undermined the best. That can happen to us. If we’re not careful, we can let the good undermine the best. So I want us to be appreciative of what we’ve just shared back to back here. On one hand, we can wander in and miss places that damage us, because we’re not being patient. Our impatience create problems for ourselves.

There’s also the sense that sometimes we wander into something that’s not good. It’s negative, it’s toxic. We step into places we shouldn’t go. There’s also the other side of this, which is that we can sometimes miss our moment. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It may be a good thing, but that it is hindering the best thing. That’s what I’m saying. Jesus was, in a way, getting at that. He was saying, “Look, it’s not that what you’re doing is necessarily bad, Martha, although, the trouble part of you, that is.” The meal part is actually a good thing. The way that you are being in this moment, that’s not a good thing. But your motive and what you’re doing, it’s good. It’s not bad. But the best? What you’re missing is the best thing.

I hope we can appreciate that. It’s something we’re going to sit with more Lord willing, in the days and the weeks ahead. We are. But in these anxious times, they are anxious times that we’re in right now, they are no matter how we slice it, but in the midst of that anxious time, this anxious time, the Lord invites us to the best thing. He invites us to hear his word. He invites us to settle our soul in Him, to exercise that positive patience. It will be helpful for us to reduce our anxiety and not increase our trouble by responding in ways that aren’t helpful.

In other words, this is not a time for self-inflicted wounds. It’s not. I don’t think there’s ever a great time for self-inflicted wounds. This is an even worse time for it because the times are troubled. Jesus taught us that we are to be very careful not to borrow from tomorrow’s trouble. It’s so easy to do. It is. We start walking down a road in our minds, we start catastrophizing. We start exercising non-faith or unbelief, distrust in the goodness of God. What he ought to be doing, or other things like that. The point is, we start walking into places tomorrow that we’re not supposed to go at all. We start borrowing from tomorrow’s trouble.

The Lord reminds us, don’t borrow from tomorrow’s trouble. There’s enough stuff today to deal with. I think some of us, I’ve mentioned this a lot, are not sometimes content with today’s trouble. We want to borrow tomorrow’s trouble. Then we’re not just content on tomorrow’s trouble, we can then say, “I want to not only borrow tomorrow’s trouble and to deal with today’s trouble, but I’m going to go back in and re-grab ahold of yesterday’s trouble.” I’m going to go back into my past and start lamenting that. I’m telling you, I’m convinced some of us have actually done that.

We have spent time toggling between today, tomorrow, which is so like borrowing tomorrow’s trouble. Then we’re toggling back over into yesterday’s mistakes, the could-haves, the should-haves, and the why didn’t I’s. We’re just getting stuck, paralyzed, overwhelmed by burdens the Lord didn’t even ask us in any way, shape, or form to carry. In fact, all he said is, “Look, you got enough stuff to deal with today. Settle your heart in me. Draw near to me. Listen for my words, do the things that we’re doing right now.” This is Sabbath for us. Sunday is Sabbath. We’re hearing His Word.

This is our church. We are a people. We share familiarity. It’s different than hearing someone who has no idea of who we are or who we haven’t had a chance to be present with, in a personal way. We have a relationship in this church. We have community. We have a sense of ease. We’ve known life here. We’ve had a chance to observe leaders up close and personal. We’re connected in a very different way than with other places and to other ministries, many of which can be wonderful things. But this is our home. So by taking time to share this moment together, we are being a people, as a family in the Lord.

Part of the larger family of Christ, but also a local family. A family that is ours in the Lord. A community, a fellowship that we’re connected to. That’s very important. We get to have that moment. It’s important to settle ourselves there. That’s why what we’re doing right now has great meaning because we’re just settling our soul together. We’re listening to His words together. Again, this is not a time for self-inflicted wounds, so let’s not borrow from tomorrow’s troubles. Let’s not try to re-grab ahold of yesterday’s regrets. Let’s just be truthful with the Lord and settle our hearts in Him. Jesus is in a way, asking us to do the same thing that Mary was actually doing.

He’s asking us to sit at his feet and listen. If you think about it, the very position of Mary implies humility and receptivity. Just like when we bow our knee in prayer, or open up our hands to him, or lift them up. We’re saying, “I’m open, Lord.” I’m open to your words, I’m open to you. I think that’s something God wants all of us to do. It’s something we can do. It almost feels more natural to do it at this time. So let’s take advantage of the opportunity.

Here’s what we’re going to do. I want to finish this. I want to come back with a final little thought and pray over all of you and send us in the week together. It’s true we won’t have a formal giving time, and I get that, but many of you have been quite faithful. I did want to say thank you. I know some of us can’t give the way that we’ve been accustomed to, and can’t give in our normal ways. We just don’t have it. But some of you have been able to step into that gap and you’ve gone beyond. I need to just bless you for that. I bless everybody. I pray for provision, protection, healing, and life. I’m just grateful for being able to lead a church like you all. If you do want to, you can give online. You can give on the website. You can send in a check like some of you have done. We’re just going to enjoy this together and be grateful that God is allowing us to share this. Again, I know it wasn’t the Mother’s Day that we envisioned. I understand that. But again, there’s so much to be grateful for as we transition into the future and adjust to new realities.

As we’re doing it, let’s trust Him. Let’s trust the Lord with our tomorrows. Today and tomorrow, we place them in your hands, Lord. We do. Let’s remember to take some time to sit at His feet. I would add one more thing. Write down some of your thoughts, journal them out and share them with friends. Especially if you have a small group that you’re connecting to virtually and online. We’re doing a whole lot of that and you can get involved in one of those. It’s not that difficult. Just let us know that you want to be involved in a community, and we’ll get you in there. Get prayed for, connected.

There’s a lot of stuff going on. This is a time for open hearts and open hands. It is time for open hearts and open hands, humble places that God is calling us into. When we talk about sow, water, and reap, it not only has to do with the message of Jesus going out and producing life as we share it, sow, water, and see the harvest. It’s not something that only goes out, a reminder that the sower goes out to sow, but it’s also something about what God wants to do within. There are things that God wants to sow within our hearts. He wants us to water that. He wants us to reap a harvest from it. So, you see that? Live it out and live it in. Sow, water, reap.

Let’s pray together. Our Lord, we thank you. We love you. We bless you. We give you this day, we give you this week, we give you the weeks ahead of us. We ask that you would just settle our hearts and teach us to love you and to be at the peace in your beauty. We do, we’re so grateful. We’re thankful for your love. We’re thankful for your presence. Calm our minds. Calm our minds, Lord. We thank you. We thank you. Isn’t the Lord so good? So God. So let’s remember: so good and so God. Maybe, do some of that inside your own heart as well. Blessings to you all. You are very loved.