7th March 2022

My current Bible readings are in the book of Job. So today I read in chapter 23: ‘When I have been tested I shall come forth as gold’. Then I went to the World Day of Prayer service where the theme was from Jeremiah 29: ‘I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’. It seemed as if God was speaking directly into the present situation of suffering, the intense suffering of the people of Ukraine, spreading out into the whole of Europe in solidarity with them and in fear of what might come.

So what might God be saying to us all now? ‘Yes, this is a testing time, but testing endured steadfastly, holding on to faith, trusting that God knows, cares and loves us through it all, gives us strength to come through it as gold’. Already there is some gold in the outpouring of help for refugees and victims of war. There will be more for people who endure without descending into bitterness and hatred.

For all of us there is the promise to hold on to: through all of this we can believe we are in God’s hands and he will not let us have to endure more than we can bear in his strength. He has plans for each of us and for all of us for a new and better future.

So we pray, and give, and do anything we can, and pray again . . . believingly.

Lesley Fuller