The disruptive and unrelenting force of COVID-19 greeted us at the beginning of 2020 and grounded us for the entire year. The coronavirus has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of our loved ones and infected millions more, causing severe pain and dislocation. As we seek to discern the future, we pray for grace, sufficient to our needs. It will certainly take time for us to adjust to new ways of being, juxtaposed to the pre-COVID-19 period; but by God’s grace we will stand secure.
We enter this New Year, 2021, with some degree of uncertainty. But we are a people of faith and we stand assuredly on the solid rock of our salvation, believing that our faith will not shrink under pressure. Now, when the storms of life are raging, we seek God’s help to remain strong in faith, resilient under
pressure and faithful in our witness. We pray that God will guide us to the lessons for the moment and that we will heed the call and respond obediently.
During the period when several plagues devastated Egypt, the Pharaoh failed to see the writing on the wall and he chose instead to continue with business as usual, stubbornly defying the signs of the time and the voice of God through God’s messenger. COVID-19, despite its devastations, offers us an invitation to see and act differently – to examine the pandemic through our faith in God’s incarnational presence and the lens of our values of hospitality and generosity of spirit. To do so is to hear God’s voice as we look at the social ills that the pandemic reveals – economic inequalities, inadequate healthcare system and the incapacity for international cooperation, in times of crisis. Now is the time for people of faith and all people of goodwill to come together and act with justice to right the wrongs of our time and to work together for life-flourishing alternatives, marked by equity, justice and peace for all.
Sundays with CWM is a series of weekly devotional meant to inspire faith and deepen our relationship with God, as we face the challenges and opportunities of life. I commend this devotional to you with prayers for your spiritual enrichment and growth.
Rev. Dr Collin Cowan
CWM General Secretary
Click here to download Sundays with CWM 2021.