2020 Vision 03 - "Essential Services"

2020 VISION – “Essential Services” Every day the mirror reminds me that I am overdue for my hair appointment, and there’s no hope of getting one in the foreseeable future. What I deemed an essential service is no longer so. Whether it’s grabbing a specialty coffee, working out at the gym, eating out, shopping trips, or attending church and sports events, our definition of “essential services” has been drastically redefined.

This has been a rough adjustment for all of us, leading many to struggle with fears and anxieties, impatience, and anger. We can easily give room to those emotions in response to life’s storms. But emotions are exhausting, and emotions make lousy drivers. We need faith and peace and rest to endure the interim, until life returns to “normal”.

This moment in time is an opportunity to readjust a poor default response mechanism. If I keep looking in the mirror and seeing the problem, I will contract frustration. I will become tempted to grab a pair of scissors and take matters into my own hands. And the result will not be pretty.

Jesus had much to say about “essential services”. Martha got a scolding, but her sister Mary was commended for sitting at His feet and hearing His Word. To the lawyer, Jesus reiterated Moses’ words, that the most essential law to keep was to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Apostle Paul also had much to say about essential services. His first and foremost message to the Corinthians was the good news of the resurrection. Christ has conquered our worst enemy – death! To Elder Timothy, Paul said the essential service was to "pray for kings and all in authority”.

Essential services for surviving, no, for being sustained in the interim in peace and rest, is to set aside time each day, sit at His feet, and soak our minds and heart with the peace – giving, vision – correcting Word of God. To give our whole hearts to loving God and trusting that He sees, He hears, He has compassion, and He has a plan He is working out. To pray for leaders tasked with managing and mitigating the onslaught of the pandemic. And ultimately to take comfort in the fact that in Christ our worst enemy, death, has been defeated. Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Pam Russell Director of Women's Ministries Public Servants' Prayer