— Romans 8:22-27
Greetings from Cambridge!
At a time when our individual and collective fate could not be more uncertain, our good instinct is to pray, but this is only half of the battle. What should we even pray for? Most of us have more questions than we have answers. When a pea soup fog descends, even familiar streets may fail us. Enter the eighth chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. The verses quoted above are stunning. If the best prayer we can muster in our weakness is a groan of anguish, we might be content simply knowing that God hears us. But these verses say so much more. God not only hears our cries but he enters into our grief. No wonder Paul tells us in chapter 12 to “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn”, thereby mirroring the Spirit’s response to us! Our faith-filled groan—akin to “Thy will be done”—is being answered accordingly because the Holy Spirit is already interceding on our behalf.
Our staff team has been grateful that this quarantine life, while certainly not ideal, has also not hindered our ministry with students. We will be devoting our summers to inviting new partners to invest in our work at Harvard. Leaders are proving to be resilient and creative, hoping, praying and preparing for fall semester on campus. They immediately created an “Exile Survival Guide” and launched a creative publication called “Poeima”. Both are stunning and the former one is attached to this memo.
In our end of the year virtual all-ministry meeting, I finished my talk with our graduating seniors in mind, praying this prayer from Thomas Merton:
Prayer
O 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 that 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.
I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
To make my journey alone.
Much love from the team,
Don Weiss
Director of Undergraduate Ministry
Christian Union Gloria
Please note: if you would like to receive regular updates on how to pray for Christian Union's work at Harvard, please email prayer@christianunion.org.
