A few months ago, I wanted to be able to connect with our church family when our ability to get together wasn’t possible due to the coronavirus shutdown. Many people were worried, and we had entered a time of uncertainty.
What could I do? An idea I decided to try was to use my phone to record and upload a weekly “Word For Your Wednesday.” It was meant to be a brief devotional with a word from God and a prayer.
I started posting these messages (each one is around 3-5 minutes) at the end of March and will probably stop once things feel like they are getting closer to “normal.” (What does “normal” mean now, by the way?)
I posted them on our church Facebook page, and had them posted to our website. I picked Wednesday because it was the middle of the week. But they really are just messages for any day that ends in “y.”
As to the content choices: some of them would not make much sense to someone who had not been living in our time and place. There will probably be a day when someone could listen to some of them and wonder what was happening when they were recorded. What were people so worried about? Or perhaps they will wonder what was going on in our country with race relations and justice?
Week by week, the messages are timely. That will change, and lots of people will lose their sense of what was happening at this time of our lives. It’s a “shelf life” thing.
The thing that will not change: the word of God. God’s word will still be able to speak to us in new ways, in new circumstances. And we will continue to need it. We will continue to need to spend time in prayer. I know that will be true for all the days that end in “y.”
The words of 1 Peter 1:23-25 make the point well. I will let Peter (who is also giving us ancient words from Isaiah 40:6-8, which were still needed!) share with us our final thought for reflection.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
For, “All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you.
