Chicago During Covid-19 #17

 

While walking, I looked down.

In the shadow of the cross, surrounded by danger, death, and disease, we pray with hope.

Chicago During Covid-19 #14

This is more than a sign speaking hope. The proceeds from its sale help provide for people in need.

If someone is poorly clothed and lacking daily food and you say, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” So also faith by itself, if it does not have good works, is dead (James 2:16-17).

Let your faith produce prayer, and your prayer produce good deeds.

Chicago During Covid-19 #10

One yellow daffodil outside a brick building. Alone.

When you are alone, remember God has said: “I will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).”

He is always there to hear your prayer.

Chicago During Covid-19 #6

Good work continues in locked-down Chicago. The ultimate good work is prayer. “Prayer is the work. Ministry is the fruit.”*

Let’s remain faithful!

*Ben Patterson, Deepening Your Conversation with God.

Eternal Life

This sign stops cars. Covid-19 stops people. As you’re stopped, pause and consider: 

Just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people  (Hebrews 9:27-28).

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16 bold mine).

You can pray, believing.

Loved by God – 2

Conceived
and wanted.

Prayed for
Loved.

Mother
with father beside her
delivered
baby girl;
named her Jaema Kaye.

Now we praise.
Through prayer,
sharing God’s joy.

For baby,
our granddaughter,
Who is loved by God.

 

Loved by God – 1

Conceived
yet unwanted.

A handful of us
who knew prayed.

Mother
abruptly
ended
baby’s
life.

Now we mourn.
Through prayer,
sharing God’s sorrow.

For baby.
For mother.
For grandmother.
Who are loved by God.

Prayer Connects us with God

I called upon the Lord . . . and my cry reached his ears (Psalm 18:6).

“Prayer is the link that connects us with God. It is the bridge that spans every gulf and carries us safely over every chasm of danger or need.”*

*L.B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert, p. 412.

Quiet Solitude

Jesus went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone (Matthew 14:23).

“Oh, the thought of having God all alone to myself, and knowing that God has me all alone to Himself!”*

*Andrew Murray as quoted in Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman, p. 403.

 

Stand in Awe of God

We are small. Our earth is the white dot at the ten o’clock position between Saturn’s bright main rings and the thinner grey-brown ring.

I ask, “What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention (Job 7:17)?”

I wonder why when, “I call to God, he hears my voice (from Psalm 55:16-17).”

And then I remember,  “God is love. . . . For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (1 John 4:16; John 3:16).”

Photo credit: Infrared, visible and ultraviolet light by the Cassini Imaging Team at NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.