Connecticut happened and I thought of words my children hear me say, “It’ll be okay.” Is that true? Does that hold much water? Here is a response and guiding scripture that we worked through during CSF services. A couple CSFer's were convicted to have a strong service mindset this spring through our life groups so we get to teach and live this out this semester. May God’s purpose also encourage you in the midst of unsettling and lingering uncertainty.
CSF response on facebook and more: “We say to children, "It'll be alright". Serve Him, pray, push back the darkness, love at every turn and you have been true to your word. Stay true Connecticut.”
Dissecting that response:
Serve:
Henry Ford: “To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.”
Martin Luther King: “Life’s most urgent question is what are you doing for others?”
Rachel Naomi Remen: “Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.”
Phillipians 2:7 “but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant”
Matthew 20:28 “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:43 “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.”
Pray:
Corrie Ten Boom: Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.”
Oswald Chambers “We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.”
I Thessolonians 5:16-18 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Pushing back the Darkness:
Matthew 16:18 “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”
Love:
Michelangelo: “Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”
Matthew 22:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
God calls us to timeless truths. How we love, fight for things that matter, pray, and serve with our time, money, resources, relationships…these things define us at every turn: in prosperity, tragedy, and the vastness between. Stay true to God, stay true to your word.
