A Concord Pastor Comments: Monday Morning Offering: 5/11

Good morning, good God!

I'm here to offer you my hope
but I think I ought to tell you
that I'm not, well, I'm not truly hopeful:
I just can't claim the fullness that hopeful seems to imply
- but I do have hope!

So, I offer you my hope, Lord, the hope I have:
that this pandemic will end
and that you will hasten the end of this scourge;
that healing will come and a powerful vaccine;
and that we'll all become aware of how true it is
that cleanliness is next to Godliness...

And I offer you my hope, Lord, the hope I have:
that we're learning new things every day,
learning from what we're suffering and from our losses;
learning from all the things, large and small, we're doing without;
learning from being less at work and more at home;
learning from being closer to one another
than we've been in quite some time...

And I offer you my hope, Lord, the hope I have:
that we won't go back to the old normal
and that the new normal will be less normal
and more, much more grateful and generous,
simple and pure, loving and kind,
self-sacrificing and charitable
and faithful to you and to all things
genuine, and wise, beautiful and holy...

And finally, Lord, I offer you my hope
that you'll make me truly hopeful:
that you'll sustain and strengthen the hope I have,
deepen and heighten the hope I hang on to,
expand and enlarge the hope I hold...

I pray you'll make me deeply, keenly, truly hope-full
in all things great and small:
let your mercy be on me, O God,
as I place my trust in you...

Amen.

Psalm 33 by Marty Haugen