Hello, loved ones.  I hope you are getting to enjoy the long weekend.  Every time I think of this holiday, I think it has a funny name.  We call it Labor Day, but for many of us it is a day when we will not labor.  I hope the slowdown caused by the Corona virus panic has made us all appreciate those who do labor a little more.

When I got up this morning, I admit I was having a tough time.  I was thinking about all the challenges being faced by members of our church right now.  I pray with you and I try to be encouraging.  I try to give hope, but I confess sometimes I feel like a liar.

So I had a little “conversation” with God.  It went something like this.

“I’m mostly ok with my situation.  I see and even thank You for the good You have done in it.  But I feel like a hypocrite.  I try to comfort people and offer hope.  I know You can do miracles.  I believe those I know who say You’ve done miracles for them, but i never saw one.  I speak with expectation, but I have little.  I trust You, because not to do so would be foolish.”

His answer, in not so many words, was this, “If you could see it, you wouldn’t call it hope. And what are you placing your hope in?  Is it that I will do what you think is best?, or is it in Me?”

The message this week is a lesson for me that I think will benefit us all as we face our individual struggles.  It is drawn from Romans 8:8-25.  Our God will finish what he started.  Until then, we endure with patience and eagerly await His coming.  We can rejoice in the midst of trials because we have this hope, not in the temporal things that will all pass away, but in the eternal relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Since it is Saturday afternoon as I write this, I will save other news for when we are together tomorrow and provide some updates in the praise and prayer requests.  I hope I will see all of you there.  🙂

Love y’all!

Larry