Hey friends, 

Thank you for spending a few moments with us. My name is Stephen Nyakairu, I am standing here in my kitchen and life has been moving at a different pace in our household these past few weeks.  

The hardest thing for me as an extrovert has been not being around people. My kids feel this as well. They miss playing with their friends, going to church, and playing with their neighbors. And even though we all enjoy being able to worship with Grace Chapel family online, we miss seeing you, our church family in person.

The other challenge is we find ourselves having ALL of our future plans changed and disrupted, my sister coming was visiting from Africa, moving this summer, Easter plans all changed.  A recent New York Times headline said “The US is plunged into deeper disruption and paralysis.” Businesses and the places we spend our time--churches, schools, community centers-- are closed, jobs are being put on hold. We don’t know what will come next

Everything is uncharted.

We can never really know what the future holds.  

Some of us, some of our friends and neighbors, may be crippled by fear. Whenever there is uncertainty, we tend to feel worry and anxiety, sometimes helplessness. 

The coming days will hold a lot of unknowns. Uncertainty. That’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t like not knowing how things will END. And that not knowing, feeding our fear, leads to a feeling of hopelessness. Everyone IS worried.  

As I consider my own feelings about the current situation, how do we move beyond worry, fear and anxiety, I am reminded of a proverb. 

Solomon was the wisest human being that lived on the earth, and he found himself in a SITUATION beyond his ability. So he asked for God’s wisdom. This is what Solomon wrote about his experience: 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all your ways and he will direct your path. (Proverbs 3:5) 

In this proverb, Solomon underscores where to anchor our trust and confidence.  

Trust is to have confidence, faith or hope in someone or something. 

We trust that the sun will rise each morning. It is outside our control, but we have faith. 

The word trust literally means to lie down on—to put your entire weight on something. When you go to sleep at night, you lie down on your bed because you believe it is strong enough to hold you up and you will wake up in the morning. 

The word also carries the idea of feeling safe and secure or feeling unconcerned. But we cannot be unconcerned if we place our trust in something else other than God. 

We BEGIN to trust in the Lord when we believe that as the object of trust He can and will DO what SHOULD and MUST be done. 

God is inviting us because He is able to calm our nerves, quiet our anxious hearts and still the thoughts that run through our restless minds. 

 

 He loves us boundlessly. God doesn’t want us coming to crucial crossroads in our lives with nothing to GUIDE us but our limited perspective. He wants us to know his ways, his will, his wisdom, divine perspective, so we don’t take the wrong road. Our own understanding won’t sustain us. 

Today our worries prompt us to wonder about our future finances, health, and safety.  Choosing to trust God is our remedy. Worry is a preoccupation with the future. I am thinking of my son Noah who struggles with symptomatic asthma, he struggles to breathe when he gets a cold, now with the Corona virus trying to shake my confidence; God is inviting me to TRUST him.  

I am giving him control of my son’s health, and his future. Your situation is different from mine. But our source of strength is the same. What about those who have lost jobs, lost livelihoods, the ones who are lonely or are beginning to lose hope? Who are sick and hurting? Can we really count on God,  depend on him to give us inspiration, confidence to be resilient now in the midst of the unknown? Yes!  

The word trust also suggests to mentally and emotionally casting all our HOPES for the present and the future upon the one in whom we trust. 

We can trust that God will bring a NEW day, and it will be a BETTER day. 

God knows everything, the beginning and the end. God is so infinitely wise.

He has the ability to coordinate and bring our current events of history throughout eternity. He can arrange ALL of our life experiences, the full effects of CoronaVirus,  all  events and circumstances surrounding us for something good. Based on that impressive résumé and experience, there’s no question that we should LOOK to Him. seek Him first. 

We are most likely to get better at trusting someone when we spend time with them, get to know their character, their ways, heart and desires and in times of testing and difficulty we deepen our confidence in their ability to care for us. We lean on them in seasons of worry, and uncertainty.

This invitation for us is to TRUST with a POSTURE that conveys complete DEPENDENCE and submission. 

Idea: When we choose to trust; worry loses its GRIP on us. 

REFLECTION IDEA

When we do,  God promises that He will make our PATH’S STRAIGHT. When we choose to trust we are saying to God ”I give you full responsibility for my life.”  

Our path forward will become clear. Then, our path will be clear--even in times of uncertainty.  

Idea: When we choose to trust; worry loses its GRIP on us. 

Teach us what it means to trust YOU, one moment at a time, one season at a time.

                            Prayer:

We pray For Trust in God O God, the source of all health:

So fill my heart with faith in your love, that with calm expectancy I may make room for your power to possess me, and gracefully accept your healing; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  

Church, Episcopal. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (Special Version)