Thursday, July 16th, 2020

With all the news and debate over how we should proceed forward during this COVID era, stress, anxiety, and fear are running rampant in our society. Like never before, none of us really knows what the fall and winter will look like, let alone the next few weeks. In the Bible, we can see that God did things in peoples lives, individually and collectively, that made them uncomfortable, even fearful, of what would come next for them. When we become too comfortable in our lives, jobs, schools, churches, and relationships, usually the first thing we lose is our dependency upon God. Imagine what it would have been like for the disciples in, unbeknownst to them, Jesus’ final days. They had traveled with him for years, seen him work miracles, and seen themselves grow in faith and confidence in God. They were comfortable with their new lives with Jesus. Before the Last Supper, when Jesus arose to wash the feet of his disciples, Peter at first refused to allow Jesus to wash his. Essentially he said, “Hold on there, that’s not how this whole thing works.” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand…Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” Peter, of course, relented and went all in, asking for Jesus to wash his hands and head, too. What we can draw from this interaction today is that the Lord has a method and a plan, even when what is going on seems strange or foreign; but to take part in that plan, we must first trust God to do what needs to be done. God has never been anything but good and especially now, we must trust that what He is doing is good, too. Today, if you are struggling with fear and anxiety over what is going on, trust what you cannot control to God because He is good.

“After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” – John 13:5-9 NIV