Do not be afraid, I am with you
Sermon for Morning Prayer 15/03/2020 You don’t need me to tell you we seem to be living in strange times ! A couple of months ago people had never heard of the coronavirus but now it dominates not just news programmes, but it seems also most of our lives. A trip to the supermarket will confirm that ! Into this situation our readings this morning couldn’t be more appropriate (Joshua 1:1-9; Ephesians 6:10-20). Amidst the chaos and the worry, God says ‘don’t be afraid’ and he reminds us that he equips us for anything we can ever face. Don’t those words sound easy, but we all know they’re not. When God says, ‘do not be afraid, I’m with you’ I know it’s not as easy as it sounds to trust that. I, probably like many of you, struggle with questions about suffering in whatever form it occurs; I still worry about not being faithful enough, or not adequate enough to share my faith well enough and I’d still like to have that sit down chat with God where I could ask a pile of questio