As I’m writing this, my girls are just a few days short of starting sixth grade. In a few months

they’ll be twelve years old. Time flies, and the world changes, all over again.

I can remember the first time I got to hold them back in neonatal intensive care. They

showed up almost six weeks early, and their little lungs weren’t quite ready to go yet. They

disappeared into my two hands beside each other. Those were scary, uncertain days, but it

turns out they didn’t last long before they were growing like weeds. Now they’re on the cusp

of being teenagers.

I won’t lie to you: I’m a little maudlin about it. I don’t miss the anxiety that week or so in the

hospital, but I still miss those tiny babies sometimes, and the bright-faced little toddlers,

and brilliant little children they were in between. But the chance to see what they become

with every day that passes, to discover who they are becoming, my brave, clever, hopeful

girls, that’s a gift more precious and important than any mere wistfulness of mine could

ever be. Every moment isn’t great, sure, but the promise of what lies ahead is always

greater. And no matter how much I may miss some bit of some yesterday, there’s no road

back to where we were: life only goes forward. And no matter what comes, God has only

ever been good to us.

Church, you don’t need me to tell you that we find ourselves in fractious times. The world

feels like it’s changing under our feet sometimes, for good or for ill. It’s easy to get

discouraged, or caught up in whatever version of yesterday we liked, to get maudlin about

the way the world, or the institutions we’ve come to rely on in this world, seem to have

changed in the course of less than ten years of fast paced and constant change and

anxiety. We had been fortunate to live lives that were, at least collectively, much less

tumultuous for a long time. I have to remind myself sometimes of the words of Psalm 46:

“we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart

of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”

Instead, the psalm describes the power of God unmaking the kingdoms and nations of the

earth, and destroying the act and tools of violence by no more than his presence, his voice,

and his breath, before he declares, “Be still, and know that I am God,” and the psalmist

reminds us that God – and God alone – is our refuge.

Time flies, and the world changes, all over again. Nothing we can do will stop it, and we

have no power to turn it back even one minute. Life only goes forward. In such a world, it’s

easy to be anxious, to be wistful, to be uncertain, to be afraid. But friends: we’re the lucky

ones. We are the ones who already know how this story ends. Even if the nations are in an

uproar, even if the mountains tremble in the heart of the sea, God is still God The promise

of what lies ahead is always, eternally greater. And we, his beloved children and his

church, have the opportunity in these, as all other days, to discover who we are becoming,

as we work to put our trust in him at the center of our lives.

God is still good to us, church. Grace still reigns. And God still wins. What is fear, or

anxiety, in the face of a faith that really believes all of this? When the world feels fluid and

uncertain, remember we have a Savior who can walk on water. In a world where everything

feels like it’s in motion, find time to be still, and know that God is still God, and always will/be.

God bless you all,

Pastor Ben