This article was first published in the June 2020 print edition of the Owensville First Christian Church Newsletter.
Moving forward through this COVID-19 season, there is so much we do not know except that God is sovereign. Lord willing, according to the “Back on Track Indiana” plan, the state will be fully “reopened” on July 4, 2020. When we get to that point, I hope we can share with each other the many ways the Lord provided and guided FCC and her leadership since mid-March. However, I will share with you a few things our Father revealed to me thus far through His Word, sometimes from my own reading of it and sometimes through other children of His.
Early on, while viewing the COVID-19-related webinar “Transformation in a Changing World” led by Dr. Jody Owens, I was introduced to this prayer by Thomas Merton from his book Thoughts in Solitude:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Can you identify with Merton’s sentiments? It’s pretty much how I’ve felt along the way. The elders, deacons and I often expressed hints of this prayer in our prayers.
As we moved along day by day, week by week, God taught some of us reading this that He’s stayed with us, taught us new things about worship, being the church, and the importance of striving after God’s heart in prayer as individuals, families, and church. He used grief, anxieties, uncertainties, ancient practices and newer technologies to draw us to Him in trust and to one another for comfort, accountability, encouragement, and mutual spiritual transformation by the Spirit. Therefore, He caught my heart when I read one morning before dawn:
Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;
but let them not turn back to folly (Psalm 85:8, ESV).
That last phrase is a reminder to me—to us—that we don’t necessarily want everything to go back to “normal.” What we should want comes through the prophet Jeremiah:
This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls. (Jeremiah 6:16, NIV)
Remember this bit of counsel I received from Dr. Jody Owens: “The goal isn’t to preserve what we had, but to ask ‘What will we be in this new reality?’”
May the peace of Christ be with you,
Bart W. Newton
Preaching Minister