Hey, everybody. This is Father John Ricardo with Acts 29. And in the middle of all the craziness

and the uncertainty that's going on right now, it seems from our perspective as a team that it's

worth using these days to reflect in a more deliberate way on the scriptures every day, which

for many of us now is the only spiritual food that we're receiving. And so we're going to do a special podcast series simply entitled,

Be Not Afraid, God's Word in Uncertain Times.

And we'll try to post something every day, usually reflecting on the scriptures,

so that we can listen in on what God is trying to say to us in these days.

Three simple thoughts or words, if you will, on this last Friday in Lent before the one that we

call good. Probing, petition, and praise.

So first probing.

As I was praying with the first reading this morning from the book of Jeremiah, what struck me is the line where it's Jeremiah prays, O Lord of hosts, who test the just,

who probe, mind, and heart. So I was looking up that Hebrew word that gets translated as probe,

and it can mean a number of different things.

It can mean to look at, to reveal, to understand, to see,

but even more to inspect or to examine.

And I think one of the things that's happening, I know what's happening in me,

I'm sure it's happening in you, it's happening in almost everybody that I talk to is the pandemic

that we're going through right now. It's serving as a catalyst, if you will, to just examine or probe

or reveal so many of the things that you and I are wrestling with in our hearts

right now. It's bringing them to the fore, right? And we're not supposed to dodge those. You're not

supposed to run away for those. God's allowing these things to kind of bubble up, if you will,

so that we can name them,

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