It has been almost a week since I posted to my blog. Time sure flies! Thanks to all who diligently read my travelogue during my trip to Pennsylvania last week. It was a great trip that brought back many wonderful memories and provided refreshment to my soul, but is also nice to be home again in Ohio. I’ve had a good week visiting with some parishioners and reconnecting with some MTSO friends, too.

Throughout the months of July and August, I am preaching on Ephesians, the Epistle lessons in the lectionary cycle. (For those who are unfamiliar, the lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings based on the Church year. Each week includes 4 readings – an Old Testament lesson; a Psalm; an Epistle lesson – from one of the pastoral letters; and a Gospel lesson). As a pastor, one of my primary tasks is to make certain that those in my charge know just how much God loves them and to help them recognize God’s presence in their lives. As I sit here writing my sermon and pondering this week’s Scripture, I cannot help but recognize that the text articulates my own personal prayer for the people of Smithville.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” ~~Ephesians 3: 14 – 21 NRSV

Amen. May it be so. Until next time, peace …