Daily Lesson for January 30, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

Abraham did not know where he was going. 

That is something I think a lot of us can sympathize and perhaps commiserate with. We don’t necessarily know where we are going. We aren’t sure where this journey is taking us. We can’t figure out how this thing will end. 

But, by faith we keep walking. We keep choosing the best path we can decipher. And we do not give up. 

Thomas Merton had a wonderful prayer which begins like this:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.”

We hope to please God. We seek to follow God. No, we really don’t know where we’re going. 

And we probably wouldn’t believe it if we did . . .

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 28, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 6 verses 1 through 10:

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.*  2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ 10Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ 

St. Augustine once said that there is always enough of that which was meant to be shared. 

The boy’s lunch was meant to be shared, and we celebrate the story. 

But there is so much more that is also meant to be shared, including wealth, prosperity, healthcare, and housing. 

It is only our failure of imagination which keeps us from sharing these things. Another name for this failure of imagination is selfishness.

The faith and imagination of the little boy with the fish is an inspiration. There is enough, if we dare to share. 

My mentor’s mentor Carlyle Marney used to say that property and poverty are not antonyms, they are synonyms; and their opposite is community. 

The boy believed in community — the miracle of community. 

And how the miracle happens is always in our hands.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 27, 2022

 Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an appropriate time to think on the small ways in which we can stand up against antisemitism both big and small. 

It’s the small that is mostly within our reach day by day and week by week. 

One small thing that can be done is what we did last night in Bible study. We are studying the book of John, which often refers negatively to a group it calls “the Jews”.  Of course the person who wrote the book was also a Jew, and Jesus was a Jew, so the writer clearly wasn’t referring to all Jews everywhere. 

Making these kinds of distinctions is necessary and important for teaching. Understanding also that there are instances of anti-Judaism in the New Testament helps us to read in a more informed and less fundamentalist eye.  Very important. 

Speaking of fundamentalism.  Bill Coffin said a fundamentalist to the Bible is like a drunk to a lamppost.  He looking more for support than he is enlightenment.

Let’s be more enlightened in the way we read the Bible and teach our faith. Too much is at stake. And too many of God’s children have lost their lives at the hands of their spiritual siblings. We must #neverforget that. 

And we must stand against antisemitism in all its forms — whether it be a synagogue in Colleyville or our own sanctuary. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 26, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 16 verses 7 through 10, and 13:

 7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ 9The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ 10The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’

13So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’ for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive?”

God sees. That is what is said to Moses at the Burning Bush about the Israelites. God has seen their suffering.

I don’t know why slavery was and is allowed to exist for so long. Lincoln said something about it’s inevitable evil in second Inaugural. And I don’t know why God the seer couldn’t or wouldn’t help the slave Hagar further emancipate herself from Abraham’s and Sarah’s bondage.  

But I do know this, God saw this tired and worn out pregnant woman in the desert.  And she saw God. And the vision gave her the strength and the courage to go on living. 

And that, for now, was miracle enough for her to stay alive, and her baby to be born, and us to know that as Zora Neal Hurston said, “Their eyes were watching God,” and God’s eyes were watching them. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 25, 2022

 Today's Daily lesson comes from Acts chapter 9 verses 1 through 8:

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ 5He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ 7The men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

Today in the Liturgical calendar is the remembrance of St. Paul's conversion. This is a day for remembering that it is a deepest truth that people really can be changed by the grace and mercy of God.

It's hard to articulate just how difficult it must have been for some of those early Christians to accept Paul as a fellow believer, and later leader in Christ's church. Paul was a zealous persecutor of the church, and he held the cloaks of those who stoned the deacon martyr Stephen. Yet, when he was changed he was changed; and the early church accepted and came to embrace the truth of that change.

This coming Sunday we'll read the Lesson from 1 Corinthians which says, "Love believes all things, and it hopes all things."

I am glad the early church believed and hoped in Christ's good news for itself that it could also believe and hope in the good news for others.

We can be changed; and I have been.

Thanks be to God.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for January 24, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 14 verses 11 and 12:

11So the enemy took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way; 12they also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

To understand the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have to see it in its context. 

Everyone knows the story of the visit of the angels to Sodom, their threatened rape, and then the destruction.  But few can see that story in the broader context of war and terror, and what happened to the city of Sodom before the visitation. 

Rape is an weapon of war and terror. It is also a weapon against war and terror. 

The story of Sodom has nothing to do with mutually-affirming, respectful, and beautiful gay relationships.

Sodom is about war and the ravages of war, and the suspicion and cruelty of xenophobia war reaps.

Learning to read the Bible in context helps us to understand the real lessons of the story. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 20, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 11 verses 31 and 32:

31 Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife, and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.

It is probably because the call of Abraham in the Lectionary begins with chapter 12 of Genesis so we don't read much of 11, but I don't think I've ever noticed until this morning that Terah the father of Abraham had already set out to go into the land of Canaan, a generation before his son was called to go and "be a blessing to all the families of the earth."

That means we've been traveling this road of blessing and wholeness a long, long time. We were scattered and set at odds at Babel in the beginning of chapter 11; but we have been working to come back together as a community and world almost ever since -- since even before Abraham.

Let's keep going, beloved. The Promised Land has been in our hearts since forever. Togetherness and community have been in the hearts of our fathers and mothers and father's father's mothers. It's in our soul. And when we arrive there we will be blessed to be a blessing to all the earth.

God promises.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for January 19, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 9 verses 18 through 25:

18 The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled.

20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. 22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25he said,

‘Cursed be Canaan;

lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’

Ham was the father of Canaan, who was said to be the father of Africa. Thus, the Curse of Ham (actually placed on Canaan) is said to be the curse placed upon all black people everywhere.

But how about this instead: Ham was the truthteller. Noah was said to be the most righteous man alive. But in reality he was a drunk. And Ham was the son who had the eyes to see it. He saw his father in the nakedness of who his father really was. That is why he was cursed -- because while everyone else was covering up for their father (the first enablers), Ham was getting rigorously honest about his family.

Most don't much like too rigorous of honesty -- whether we're talking about real fathers or founding fathers. And the one who dares to tell the truth, is often the one who in the end bears the curse while everyone else goes on acting like they never noticed their daddy had no clothes.

It's all in the Bible.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for January 18, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 3 verses 17 through 20:

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.

When I read the book of John I see so many in hiding. They are afraid of the light because they hate the light. They hate the light because they hate themselves. They hate what they have done and become. The light is too much for them to bear.

But the light has not come into the world to condemn the darkness. The son has not come into the world to condemn the world.

So many are so afraid. They live in fear of being found out. They hide, they evade, and they condemn; but the condemnation of others is a hedge against their own condemnation.

The Gospel message is the promise that there is no condemnation for those willing to live in the light. There is no condemnation for those who trust and give themselves to the light.

But that requires true surrender; and that for most of us is the hardest part.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day -- January 17, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson are words from the Eulogy for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. given at his funeral by Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays. They speak to a people's collective guilt and responsibility. They also speak of the importance of standing up for democracy -- then and now, and the power the people of peace, goodwill, and justice have to bring forth a more just society:

"The Memphis officials must bear some of the guilt for Martin Luther’s assassination. The strike should have been settled several weeks ago. The lowest paid men in our society should not have to strike for a more just wage. A century after Emancipation, and after the enactment of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, it should not have been necessary for Martin Luther King Jr. to stage marches in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma, and go to jail thirty times trying to achieve for his people those rights which people of lighter hue get by virtue of their being born white. We, too, are guilty of murder. It is time for the American people to repent and make democracy equally applicable to all Americans. What can we do? We, and not the assassin, represent America at its best. We have the power—not the prejudiced, not the assassin—to make things right."

Daily Lesson for January 14, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 6 verses 5 through 8:

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ 8But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord.

This is really a horrifying story if you think about it. Even more horrifying is the fact that so many children’s Sunday School rooms are decorated with scenes from the Noah’s Ark.  They are all scenes from above the water. 

If we are to hold onto this story we have to discover new ways to read it. Actually, we have to rediscover very old ways of reading it. 

St. Augustine, before he was a saint, was so disturbed by this other similar stories in the Bible that he refused to convert to Christianity. It was St. Ambrose who taught him that when incongruent with what we know of God’s love these stories must be read allegorically. 

It was actually a Biblical way read. Read 1 Peter 3:18-22 and you’ll see that a New Testament writer actually reads this story allegorically — interpreting it as a prefigurement of Baptism. 

One of the greatest stumbling blocks to our faith, and most serious psychological dissonance producing aspects for Christians are these stories which on surface read contrary to what we know and believe about God. 

We need to give ourselves permission to ourselves to read allegorically. We need to give permission to others to find the hidden symbolic also. 

The meaning of the flood story is not the surface reading!  We have to look deeper into the hidden meaning of the story.

This story, and many others. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas?

Daily Lesson for January 13, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 1 verses 45 through 48:

45Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’

The fig tree is symbolic. It is the place of hiding, the place of anxiety, and of fear, and shame. It is the place where Adam and Eve, our primordial parents, first hid after the fall — behind fig leaves in the garden. 

Nathanael’s sarcasm — “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” — is a sign of evasion. It is a coverup. He is in hiding. 

Jesus sees through the evasion. He looks past the sarcasm. He has glimpsed and grabbed hold of the heart. 

A good counselor, or pastor, or spiritual advisor, or good guide, or friend can do this also. They can see past the snideness and put ons and all the other deflections we use as humans to hide, and get right to the core of who we are without the fig leaves we cut and contrive. 

They can get right at our shame and vulnerability and make us feel — perhaps for the first time ever — truly accepted. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 12, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 4 verses 1 through 7:

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have produced* a man with the help of the Lord.’ 2Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. 3In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

"Why are you angry?"

This is an important and profound question for our self-reflection.

We say someone or something makes us angry. But the truth is the anger is already inside us. Others may bring it out, but the anger was already there.

The Lord could see the anger in Cain. He must have been seething when his gift was rejected. But even before that, the anger was perhaps already there. Maybe that is why his gift was rejected in the first place.

Why was he angry? Cain would have done well to sit with this question and to consider it. What was it about him that allowed such jealousy and hatred to take root ? What was it about him that was the source of such hatred? As is said in the 12 Step Tradition, what was "the exact nature of his wrongs"?

We all have anger inside us. We all have jealousy and bitter resentment. It is good and necessary that we sit with these feelings for a time -- examine and try and to know them.

Why are we angry? What really is the matter -- not with him or with her or with them, but with me?

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for January 11, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 3 verses 22 through 24:

22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— 23therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

Accepting new, and often hard realities is a necessary part of life. Learning to live east of Eden is a primal demand on the human soul and psyche. 

The sure path to psychic and emotional harm is the inability to come to terms with where we are and what we can and cannot do about it. This is the work of being human. 

Below is the Serenity Prayer, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr. Many are familiar with the abbreviated version of this prayer. I offer the full version this morning because I think it has important things to say about learning to live in the world that is, while still hoping in the world that is to come:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 10, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 2 verses 18 through 23:

18 Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ 19So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man* there was not found a helper as his partner. 21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,

‘This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

this one shall be called Woman,*

for out of Man* this one was taken.’

I am interested in how you read this story.

Adam took it upon himself to name all the animals of the field and birds of the air. And when Eve was created, he took it upon himself to name her too. He named her "Woman" because she came from "Man".

But wasn't there something deeply problematic from the very beginning about defining a woman by the relation of the man in her life? Might not she have had the right to name herself?

Or, maybe she was just fine with it, and that's how it was with them. They were of an older generation, after all.

Anyhow, it's something to think on this morning. And at the very heart of the question is the fact that right at the very beginning -- "in the beginning" -- there is the matter of consent.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for January 7, 2022

 Today’s Daiky Lesson comes from Colossians chapter 1 verses 9 through 14:

9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. 11May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

We saw again yesterday all the images from a year ago. It was horrifying and sad to remember. Even more horrifying and sad to me is that so many are in denial about the fact, force, and meaning of the violence that took place. 

Yet even as I am appalled by what took place and also afraid of what it portends, I also still hold a place for the humanity of those who were there storming the Capitol. I recognize that there is something in me, that if things had not gone differently, could have led me to take their same dark path. This recognition forces me to resist all demonization. 

I give thanks this morning for my “share in the inheritance of the saints in light”.  I pray for us all who are in the light to grow in the knowledge of God’s goodness and mercy this year. I ask that we be made strong, that we might stand steadfast, endure, and bear the fruit of righteousness, even amidst evil days. 

I pray also for grace and for humanity for our enemies. They are many.  They are forceful. They are remorseless. And they are shrewd. 

But, as the Quakers say, “if in fight the beast you become a beast, then the beast has won.”

Let us be not beasts to one another this year. Let us be kind and be human instead. 

Let us also beware.

And, above all, let us set to living lives worthy of our Lord. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for January 4, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ephesians chapter 5 verses 15 through 20:

15 Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, 19as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, 20giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today a friend on Facebook is celebrating 3 years of sobriety.

Another friend just marked his third dry date.

I haven't given up alcohol all together, but I have cut way, way back. It was just too easy to drink too often during the pandemic. What else was there to do in 2020 but pour a glass of wine and watch the world fall apart?

These are "evil days", the Lesson says this morning. We shouldn't shame ourselves too much for wanting to escape.

But the task of the spiritual life is to stay present. It's to stay awake, keep alert, and keep connecting.

"Be careful how you live," the Lesson says. Another translation says, "Watch how you live."

And we can't watch out for others, if we don't first watch out for ourselves.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for January 3, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Kings chapter 19 verses 9 and 10:

9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 10He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’

Elijah was on the run. He was scared, and he was frustrated, and he had no sense of anything good coming forth from the future. Evil was still so strong, even after defeat, and Elijah had lost all hope about the future. He was deeply depressed, and he felt like he was all "alone".

But after listening to Elijah's complaint, God gave him an assignment. He was to leave the cave where he had gone to hide, and go and call and anoint others to be by his side. So Elijah went, and he anointed Jehu as king, and Elisha as prophet; and along the way he discovered there were other prophets still alive and ready to help also.

The forces of darkness are still strong. Evil still persists. It is a frustrating and deeply dispirited time.

But we cannot lose heart, beloved. There is more than the eye can see. There are others to come. There are others out there. And there is a whole heaven filled with angels waiting to come and help.

And help they will.

So hold on, faithful friends. For I heard the bells on Christmas Day "peal more loud and deep; God is not dead, nor doth He sleep".

Let's remember that in 2022. God is not asleep; and we are not alone.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.