We Need You

Good Afternoon Morehead Family, This new year has begun with a lot of excitement. We had our first service of the year be online, followed by remembering our baptism and a service of healing and anointing. Looking forward, we have many items on our calendar- discussion of our denomination, Lent, and let's not forget some pancakes on Fat Tuesday. Perhaps above these things, or at least tying them together has been a sense of consistent change at Morehead. I recognize the difficulty in this, because I too have felt it. There is change that is good in our life- nobody complains about winning a million dollars in the lottery. But there is change too that seems to hamper our sensibilities and our way forward. I know I have felt swayed at times between both of these sensations, the excitement of something new, and the need of stability. Despite this, we know from having lived, that stability can not be promised, and change is nothing short of a guarantee. We only can control how we respond to the newness and alterations of our life. We can choose to pursue God in them, ask where we are being guided, and find growth from the winds of change. I came across this prayer yesterday from my favorite theologian, Howard Thurman. We will discuss Thurman in great detail next month as we celebrate and recognize Black History Month. In the meantime, I thought this poem could be an introduction to his work and prayers. In this prayer, he names the needs of his reality. Need of time, order, and sense of the future. How do we find these things, in setting goals, moving forward, and in shifting sands? God's blessings to you,

Pastor Paul I NEED YOU Howard Thurman I need Your sense of time. Always I have an underlying anxiety about things. Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends and am completely without patience. It is hard for me to realize that some growth is slow, that not all processes are swift. I cannot discriminate between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed because my sense of time is dulled. O to understand the meaning of perspective that I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure of time. I need Your sense of order. The confusion of the details of living is sometimes overwhelming. The little things keep getting in my way, providing ready-made excuses for failure to do and be what I know I ought to do and be. Much time is spent on things that are not very important while significant things are put in an insignificant place in my scheme of order. I must unscramble my affairs so that my life will become order. O God, I need Your sense of order. I need Your sense of the future. Teach me to know that life is ever on the side of the future. Keep alive in me the future look, the high hope. Let me not be frozen either by the past or the present. Grant me, O Patient One, Your sense of the future without which all life would sicken and die.