Content In All Things

April 9, 2025

Leadership Notes

     What a lovely morning. As I look out my office window {thank you, God, for this beautiful facility and lovely community}, the sky is clear…sun shining…a slight rustle of a breeze. This is the day the Lord has made. No matter what we experience or go through, God is praised because life is good. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, we have learned to be content in all things. Your embrace of that affirmation is lived out in how we worship. Covenant Church people love worshiping together. And by worshiping, I mean focusing our praise, glory, and honor on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen?

     Reflecting on one of the themes of Sunday’s message, one of our worshipers emailed me a quote from Corrie ten Boom. Ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker and later a Christian writer and public speaker. She worked with her father and other family members to help many Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust by hiding them in their home. They were caught, and she was arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, is a biography that recounts the story of her family's efforts and how she found and shared hope in Jesus Christ while she was imprisoned at the concentration camp. She lived her later years in Placentia, California, which is the city Lori and I lived in when we were first married. She spoke several times at the Presbyterian Church we attended. She died in the spring of 1983. She is buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California, which is where my father’s ashes are interred. Small world.

     Knowing a bit of her background, here’s the quote:

“WORRY DOES NOT EMPTY TOMORROW OF ITS SORROW. IT

EMPTIES TODAY OF ITS STRENGTH.”

     I love when kindhearted folks share feedback like that. We help each other grow in our walk with Jesus. In the tumult of today, that reflection on the truth Jesus teaches moves us forward with hope and confidence. Would you have it any other way?

     And now, your Moment of Spurgeon:

“Let your cares be the raw material of your prayers, and as the

alchemists hoped to turn dross into gold, so do you, by a holy

alchemy, actually turn what naturally would have been a care into

spiritual treasure in the form of prayer. Baptize every anxiety into

the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and

so make it into a blessing.”

     With Much Love and Affection {and always striving to be of good cheer},

                  Richard