Prayer on Certainty

Read Romans 8:31-39
³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³ Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
    we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

               There is no way I can know, Lord, just what today holds in store.  Before night comes, or during the night, things could happen to me or to those I love that would lift me to a peak of joy or drop me into a pit of grief.  Each new day brings me to corners I cannot see around, and I fool only myself when I refuse to recognize how much of the future I can neither control nor foresee.

                Nevertheless, in the face of the uncertainties of life, in these moments I want to celebrate some of its certainties.  With a grateful heart, I count what I can count on: 

¨   The steady rhythms of day and night and of the seasons;

¨   The disposition of our bodies to fight disease, to maintain the equilibrium of health;

¨   The linkage between disciplined effort and the development of competence;

¨   The loyalty and love of family and friends, of ---______ and _____ and _______. 

However, most of all: 

¨   The promise you have given that nothing in life or death will separate us from your caring. 

For the rocks that thrust through the shifting sands, accept now my offering of gratitude.  Amen.