By The Rev. Susan Balfour

Beloved,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Christ! I thank God for you daily, trusting in the work that we do together in Christ’s name. I am truly grateful for you.

Between canceling worship last Sunday, and urging your discretion for this coming Sunday, I am reminded that worship isn’t a practice we undertake solely on Sunday morning, let alone in one particular place. It is, of course, deeply important that we regularly gather together to worship as one, and our Sanctuary is a holy space for us. But worship is a daily endeavor, one that we can undertake wherever we are.

The Apostle Paul urges us to “pray without ceasing.” We might consider that a tall order! What I think he meant by that is that as long as we go through our daily lives with a conscious sense of God’s presence in our lives, then everything we do is prayer. After all, prayer isn’t just about us desperately trying to find poetic ways to phrase our needs and the world’s needs; it’s also about being receptive to what God has to say to us. In other words, prayer is a two-way communication.

This raises the questions: in what ways do you “pray” in your daily life? How and when do you seek and hear God’s voice? What might change about the way you live and move in this world if you considered every thought, word, and action as worship?

I pray that your lives are holy, lived in daily worship as unceasing prayer.

In Christ,

Rev. Susan