7-Aug-22 (Luke 12:32-40)

One day when I was in school someone knocked on the door and spoke to the teacher for a while. She turned to us and said, "I'm going to have to leave for a while. Please do your reading while I'm gone." and then she just left!
Some of us took out our books and started reading. Some of us did other things. (Things we weren't supposed to do.) I'm not going to tell you which one I did but I will tell you this: When the teacher suddenly showed up at the door again. The students that had been doing their reading like they were supposed to do were glad they did. The ones who had been doing other things? They weren't as happy.
Jesus told a story about something like that, where a master had gone away and left the servants in charge. The ones who were doing what they should have been doing were glad when the master returned.
Jesus said it will be like that when he comes back. (The thing is, neither God nor Jesus ever really left us alone. We just can't see them right now.) But there will be a time when we see Jesus and I hope we'll be the ones that are glad that we were doing the things Jesus told us to do.

Let's pray about that.
God, help us to remember that, even when we can't see you, you're right here with us. Help us also to remember that you've told us the things we need to be doing to help others and to serve you. Help us to keep doing them, even when we forget you're around.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.