by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Finding Hope in God’s Unfailing Love and Salvation

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Most of my childhood summers were spent dreaming, dreaming of a world of baseball, fishing, and not going back to school. I dreamed of my grandfather signing me to a contract with the San Francisco Giants, of catching trout in the Willamette River, and of my school being shut down forever.

Well, one of the three dreams came true, and it wasn’t playing baseball for the Giants or my elementary school burning to the ground.

Summers are made for dreams, aren’t they? The pace slows down, we sit in a swing rocking back and forth thinking about what life might be like some day.

This is not a normal summer. If there has been one dream that we have shared, it’s that all this madness would soon disappear. We’re ready to get past COVID-19. We’re ready for the riots to stop, shootings to cease, and the elections to be over.

“May your unfailing love come to me, LORD, your salvation, according to your promise.”
Psalm 119:41 New International Version

I’m taking a slow journey though Psalm 119 in my morning devotions, taking one stanza at a time. The priest who wrote this psalm might have appeared to be a dreamer to people who had returned from exile in Babylon. He puts his hope in the promise of God and because of this hope he walks in the way of God’s commands, precepts, and statutes.

He sees God’s word as his way forward into the unknown of the future.

His world might have looked a lot like ours. Things weren’t the same in Palestine when the exiles returned. There was no temple. There were no walls protecting the city, but it didn’t stop him from dreaming about what God can do through his word. Even without a temple or walls to protect the city, he would sing of God’s unfailing love and salvation.

Our world might not be the same as it was and we might find it difficult to dream about what the future holds, but know that through Jesus, God ‘s unfailing love and salvation are still with us and will be with us through the summers that lay ahead.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado