Prayer To Find Strength To Endure Troubles and Find Joy and Peace

 DECEMBER 16 -  VACCINE AND HOPE

December 16 – 9 Days Before Christmas.  Well, the top news story around here yesterday wasn’t Christmas, it was the first vaccinations here in British Columbia against the Covid-19 virus.  Ontario and Quebec started yesterday and so hope has begun to rise that the end of the pandemic is in sight.  While it may be a few months yet, with this vaccine, another one to likely be approved by the end of the week, and more to come, the sense of relief and optimism was pretty clear in politicians and health care leaders.

At the same time they are reminding us to be vigilant and cautious during these next weeks and months.  We’ve regularly heard that a vaccine in a few weeks won’t help anyone who contacts the virus today.

For me and my family that came in the form of the positive test for Covid-19 for our 98 year old mother Rose. We got the test results this morning.  Mom had been pretty sick for a few days but seemed to turn a corner on Saturday evening and has been feeling not too badly for the past couple of days.  I knew she’d been tested and I was pretty sure she’d come back negative.  But sadly, she didn’t.  I got the call from my sister with the news early this morning.  We’re all hopeful that for whatever reason, Mom doesn’t have a severe case of the virus and has turned a corner.  We’re taking it one day at a time as you can imagine.

But as I walked around my apartment this morning after hearing the news, I was thinking about how I hope and pray Mom will recover well and quickly, but if she did go to be with Jesus then we could announce that the vision she lost a few years ago has been restored and she was seeing the Lord Jesus face to face.  I can only imagine the wonderful things she will hear from her Lord and see on His face in that encounter. 

What gives my mom hope today and can do the same for all of us? Listen to these amazing words:

Since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.  Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.  Romans 5:1-5

This is the hope Mom and all of us who know the Lord Jesus carry with us every day.  It gives joy and peace, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow – as the song says.

We thank You God, for making us right in Your sight through what the Lord Jesus has done for us.  By His death and resurrection he has made a way for us to stand in an undeserved place of privilege and confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.  Our sins our forgiven.  We have been made friends of God and what we have seen is only a tiny bit of what wonderful things are yet to be seen when Christ appear and we see Him as He really is.

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.  1 John 3:2

You know all about the problems and trials we are facing these days and we thank You for grace poured out on us so we can stand strong and endure.  Help us to be people of character who trust You in every situation and not just squeak through, so to speak, but who actually confidently remain strong and filled with faith in who You are and how much You love and care for us.

We pray that You will once again today fill our hearts with Your love through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Restore us, make us strong, firm, and steadfast.

The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  1 Peter 5:10

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,  Ephesians 1:8

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  Hebrews 10:23