Note from Nancy: This week in Florida we've been preparing for a hurricane. By the time you read this, the storm will have passed and either we have escaped its danger or we haven't.
Either way, God is good.
Here are some thoughts from past columns:
One of my favorite passages of scripture is Psalm 18. It describes a violent storm, terror and distress, "the cords of death coiled around me."
The earth trembles and quakes. God is furious with anger, smoke rising from his nostrils.
He parts the heavens and comes down to earth, with darkness as his covering. He's hurling hailstones and bolts of lightning.
So, there's all this terror and chaos at the hand of God, but then something happens.
The psalmist writes: "He (God) reached down ... and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters ... He rescued me from my powerful enemy ... He brought me out into a spacious place.
"He rescued me because he delighted in me" (Psalm 18:4-19).
If we belong to God, we can trust that even in the chaos, he is at work. If he takes something away, if our plans are thwarted, if our dreams are shattered, he is doing something good on our behalf — he rescues those he loves.
Sometimes chaos comes to remind us of the mysterious, unfathomable nature of God or as a sign of a terror-filled judgment against sin, Galli writes. "But in either case, we are assured that the Spirit is hovering over the turbulence, preparing to create, sooner or later, something remarkable."
Eugene Peterson, who wrote "The Message" Bible paraphrase, once said he sometimes thought all he ever did as a pastor was speak the name "God" in situations in which it hasn't been said before and where people haven't recognized his presence.
"Joy is the capacity to hear the name and to recognize that God is here," he said.
Currently, I'm in a season of rest, a respite from several years of steady anxiety and unrest. Back then, I experienced the incredible power of the name of God to bring light to the darkness, comfort to my grief and peace to my unpeace.
Even now when things are relatively calm, sometimes I just say his name and the beauty of it makes me weep.
I think in all our turmoil, from within and outside ourselves, what we need and want most is peace. When you know the peace that only God gives you can endure anything.
Though our faith is often weak, if Jesus is our firm foundation, if we belong to him, his hand is ever ready to lift us back to stability, peace and sanity.
The last stanza of the hymn, "How Firm A Foundation: goes: "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to His foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake."
That's good to remember.
In some churches, at the end of the service the pastor will say, "Let's stand to receive the benediction," a word of blessing from God, a gift of grace, from Creator to created beings, to sustain us until the next time the church meets for worship.
In tumultuous times like these, we need to receive and hold on to these benedictions.
So, I'd like to leave you with my favorite benediction, found in the New Testament book of Jude:
"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever."
Amen!
Nancy Kennedy can be reached at 352-564-2927 or by email at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com.
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