When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94:19
Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. Prov. 12:25
Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7
Heavenly Father, something’s afoot when personalities on the Weather Channel become household names to us. Hurricane Florence is stirring up our meteorological sensitivities again, and it doesn’t seem like things are going to quiet down anytime soon, with more storms brewing in the world’s oceans. We are especially prayerful this morning for those who live along the Carolinas and Virginia coastlines.
We own our fears, state our worries, and run to you, Father, in this angst-producing season. Thank you for promising to catch every care we cast in your direction. Thank you for speaking the “good word” we need when anxiety weighs our hearts down, from real Hurricanes, and the metaphorical ones as well.
We know we don’t have to ask “Why?” big storms come to us—as though those in the cone of the hurricane are more deserving of major life-disruption than others. For you make your sun rise on the evil and on the good, and you send rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:45). As long as you come to us in the storm, we can “weather” most anything.
Though hurricanes are quite capable of separating us from things we love (houses and stuff, plans and dreams), nothing can separate us from your love. Father may this become profoundly real to us, and palpably sweet, the rest of our days in this world.
We do pray for protection for those most likely to receive the greatest impact from the storm, and we pray for first responders. Loss of property is one thing, loss of life quite another. And we pray for neighbor-love to trump self-preoccupation and self-preservation. Our country has never been more politically-divided, mean-spirited, and spite-filled. Rescue us, Father, rescue us… if not from storms, by storms.
May we, your children, be joyful servants, mercy conduits, and grace dispensers in the coming days and weeks. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ great and gracious name.
