What’s next?

Matthew 24:36

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

(Warning: I am going to take this verse completely out of context as it actually refers to the End of Days and I’m talking about the near future.)

This morning I am working on sermons and music responding to sermons and am being really frustrated by the whole “about that day and hour no one knows” when we will get back to in-person worship thing.  

IF we are still going to be worshipping online at the end of December THEN I can choose music we can sing as loudly and joyfully as we wish in our own homes.

BUT if we are going to be worshipping in person, then I must choose music we will not be tempted to bellow out because there will be no congregational singing or other verbal responses allowed.

I really like knowing what I am supposed to be planning for.  When we return to the sanctuary our worship service will be different in many ways than what we are used to, but that’s to be expected.  The difficulty I am running into is not knowing when that is going to happen.  We don’t know how long the current surge in coronavirus cases will last, so we don’t know when we will return to our sanctuary.  I really dislike not knowing.

And that’s kind of funny because I really don’t have any way of knowing for sure what’s going to happen tomorrow, or even later today.  The future is unknown.  I have to just deal with what I have in front of me right this minute.  Oh, I can plan for what I think might happen tomorrow, with the assumption that tomorrow will be about the same as today.  But I have to be ready to make changes if things go differently than I anticipate.  

About that day and hour, no one knows.  I certainly don’t.

Patient God, I know that the future is in your hands, not mine, but I’m really not good at not being able to plan.  Help me to be more accepting of the possibility of sudden radical change in what I expect for tomorrow, and better at trusting that when you are in charge all will be well.  Amen.