If you'd like to watch, click on Pastor Squatch Musings!

You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Psalm 16:11, LSB

We know suffering. This is a reality that confronts us every day as we witness the events unfolding in our world. Natural disasters, war, famine, crime, and the list goes on and on as we see the faces of children in the midst of all the chaos of the world. Our God desires for us to know His joy and to cling to this promise as we face all of these things in our lives. Joy is not the same as happiness because it can be known in the darkest of times and endures when happiness has long dissipated. We are called to see the promise as we look to eternity and the beauty that can arise in the most uncanny places. A moment of kindness in a time of great loss or a comforting word in a time of tragedy. We can catch the glimmers and see the embers of what burns in our Lord’s heart for us as His people. God doesn’t leave us and we are not forgotten, but He is always there forging a path forward. For this reason, we are always a people of hope, and because of this, we may know His perpetual peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.