May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us
and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. 2 Thess. 2:16–17
Lord Jesus, you could delegate a legion of angels, send a parrot to sit on our shoulder, or float a rainbow over our heads. But you yourself, and Abba Father, are committed to encouraging us by the Holy Spirit, through the Bible, all the time. We are humbled, grateful, and encouragement-hungry.
The Scriptures are such a gift to us. They are a treasure trove of hope, an artesian spring of well-timed refreshment, a perpetual supply of heavenly perspective—the guarantor of free, daily return trips to Gospel-sanity. So here we come.
Father, because of the “eternal encouragement and good hope” of your love for us in Jesus, we don’t have to mask our feelings or mute our cries. Many of us are quite tired—physically and emotionally.
Others are “weary in well-doing,” or simply overwhelmed from doing too much. Some of us feel more fear than peace, or more dread than joy, or more anger than compassion. We need the fresh encouragement and strength, you alone can give.
Whether it’s an uptick in COVID infections; the heartache of racial injustice, or the simmering tensions of being 5 months from a presidential election. Or whether our sadness, heaviness, and neediness have zero to do with any of these things. In any case and every case, we cast our cares on you, lift our hands to you, and put our trust in you.
Thank you for not loving us to the degree we are “doing cartwheels for Christ,” but to the degree you have hidden our lives in Christ, which is 100%. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ glorious and grace-full name.