Great Plains Daily Devotional for 7/14/2020

Today please be in prayer for

McPherson: First UMC
Hutchinson District
McPherson: First UMC
Hutchinson District
Moundridge UMC
Hutchinson District
Murdock KS UMC
Pretty Prairie UMC
Hutchinson District

Today's Lectionary Text

Psalm 139:1-12, 13-14

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.

Today's Devotional

Did you ever have an experience similar to this: I needed daughter No. 3, Erin, but I was not totally present, so I called for Kristin, the oldest (oops!). Then, I hollered for Alissa, the middle one (oh, no!). Finally, I got to Erin. Or, in today’s version, when I Facetime with my 6-year-old grandson, Owen, I have no trouble calling him by name. He’s the oldest one. But how many times since March have I called our 4-month-old grandson, whose name is Wendell, Owen by mistake? I even know why his name is Wendell and that does not seem to help.

As I read these verses from Psalm 139, I discover that God does not have this problem. God knows each one of us so very well, so intimately. Yes, God really knows me. God put me together, God made me special. God knows my very essence.

In addition, if I want to be a little less known, that is too bad. Try as I might, I cannot get away from God and from the fact that God knows me so very well. God sticks with me. God really cares about me. God created me, all of me, God set me apart, and God is aware of my anxiousness and fears.

If God knows me like this, it will seem that God must know others, whom God also knit together, in the same way. The person who contracted COVID-19 and is on a ventilator is on God’s radar. The frontline doctors, nurses and caregivers who are daily risking their own lives are part of God’s network of care. God understands just how scary the position in which each of these finds him- or herself is. And God is there.

Surely, in the last 8 minutes and 46 seconds of his life, George Floyd was terrified. Our hope might include that in those terror and fear-filled minutes, he knew the presence of God with him. God had known him since God created him. Like me, like each of my daughters, George Floyd was created as something wonderful, special, and unique. And God does not ignore any part of what he has created. God did not, during those 8 minutes and 46 seconds leave George Floyd alone.

Perhaps each of us is named by God, created by God just to convey to a world full of God’s creations, how much God cares, and the nearness with which God holds us. We must each by a channel for that caring to impact the world. Let us each find a way that fits us to be conduit for God’s caring love -- to those who are afflicted by the pandemic, to professionals who are risking everything every day to treat those who are ill, to those folk who are treated as less than a creation of God because they are different. We each have a part of us that can communicate to others of God’s children, just how valuable, unique and cared about they are. Let’s do it!
 
-Dianne Tombaugh
Retired Deacon
tombaugh.dimeta53@gmail.com
 

Prayer for Reflection

For knitting me together and making me who I am, I give you thanks and praise, Holy One. Help me to use who I am to help others find the space and resources to be just who you created them to be. Let us all work together to live faithful lives that bring your kingdom nearer. Amen.

 

 

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