Corona Crisis

The Day The Lord Has Made

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 ESV

Interestingly the day that King David was writing about in this Psalm was not the church picnic, or some other celebration. In fact when David woke early that morning he looked out his window and saw an army camped out on his doorstep and he began to cry out to the Lord for help. The rejoicing part of this psalm begins as David realizes that God is listening to his cry for help and that God will come to his rescue.

KIMG1816

As we face off against this latest Corona crisis, with each of us virtually barricaded in our homes it is easy to give in to boredom, frustration or even despair. But David reminds us that the circumstances we are in are not the source of our hope. Our hope is in the Lord. We are in trouble but God is listening. He knows what to do and He promises to come to our rescue. So whether God’s rescue looks like a sudden turn of events in our favor or a quiet voice reminding us that His grace is all we need; we can know one thing for sure:

This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!!

In The Garden Of Prayer

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

I have been so excited to find that a few of my friends who work in the nursing homes where I have ministered have been able to share these simple videos with the residents. Though not highly professional in quality these are the songs that they love to sing and I have included sub-titles to help them join in. If you know of anyone serving now in a long term care facility especially in this crisis it would be a great blessing if you could share these hymns with them. This is my small offering to encourage them as they are sealed off from family members, friends and even pastors, chaplains and priests. God bless

https://youtu.be/ZALzTm_1sGA

Counting the Joy

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
James 1:2 ESV

We had gotten used to Disney being closed and resigned to the fact that even beaches were shut down. That was soon followed by restaurants, my barber shop and finally even our church. But the reality of this verse didn’t kick in for me till yesterday when I discovered that there were no cases of any kind of water at Publix and the clerk didn’t know when it would come in.

Like the surprise of a sunrise streaking across the horizon I suddenly realized that nothing was in my control. It has become popular to say that we are all in this together. But our togetherness is kind of like being in the same waiting room each awaiting our individual surgery. One by one God is operating on our hearts through new and different trials. The good news is that He is not only a Good Shepherd -He is also a great surgeon! We can count the procedure we are facing as joy because we know that in the recovery room He will tell us that the operation was a success!