Steadfast Hope for a New Semester of Ministry
BECKY KIERN|CONTRIBUTOR It’s that time of year again. Everywhere I look there are advertisements for kids clothing, backpacks, and notebooks. My inbox is full of email correspondences for fall teaching engagements. My social media pages are filling up with photos reminiscing about last-summer adventures. And friends are preparing to drop their kids off on the new adventure of kindergarten and college. All of this adds up to the truth that another summer is ending and a new fall semester is upon us. Some of us are entering into this new semester with excited energy. We are ready to roll out the new ministry programs we’ve developed or Bible studies we’ve prepared to teach. But some of us find this semester approaching and the best we can do right now is limp along. We are unable to fathom where we might get the energy for this new semester. We are still recovering from, or in the middle of, a painful ministry season. Paul’s words of hope to the Romans, can offer us a chance to pause and reflect upon the simple, yet profound foundational truth of the gospel message. His encouragement to the early church was to remember their peace, their relationship with God, and their steadfast hope. And his words of encouragement can offer us the same hope as we enter our ministry work in this new semester. Romans 5:1–5: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us...