Empowered Witness: Embracing Courage for the Unknown

As summer begins to unfold here in Crystal Lake, there is a certain feeling in the air. School years are ending. Gardens are beginning to grow. People are making plans, taking trips, changing routines, wondering what comes next. Summer often arrives carrying both excitement and uncertainty. We step into longer days without always knowing where the road ahead will lead.

This summer we are preparing to begin a new summer theme together: Courage for the Unknown.

Throughout the summer, we will explore what it means to live faithfully and boldly when the future feels unclear. We will walk alongside people in scripture who made risky choices, stepped into uncertainty, and trusted God even when outcomes were far from guaranteed.

We begin with Ruth. Ruth finds herself in a time of famine, displacement, grief, and political instability. There are no easy answers in this text. No triumphant certainty. Only the courage to keep going. Ruth’s famous words to Naomi “Where you go, I will go” are not sentimental. They are a declaration of steadfast love in the face of fear.

That matters in the world we are living in. We are living through a moment when death-dealing forces seem loud and powerful. Fear rises by feeding division and despair. Many people feel exhausted by cruelty, overwhelmed by uncertainty, or unsure whether compassion can truly change anything.

And yet the witness of scripture remains stubbornly hopeful. Ruth reminds us that courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is choosing love anyway. Courage is staying tender in a hardening world. Courage is refusing to abandon one another when systems fail. Courage is believing that God still works through ordinary acts of loyalty, mercy, and accompaniment.

This Sunday, we are also honored to welcome Dr. Marvin Wickware as our guest preacher. During our later service hour, Dr. Wickware and Pastor Katie will engage in a conversation around his book, Loving Through Enmity, exploring how Christian love can move beyond abstraction and into meaningful transformation in a divided world as it pertains to the call of antiracism in the church.

It feels like the right beginning for this season ahead. Because resurrection faith has never been about certainty. It has always been about courage. Let us keep choosing life, mercy, truth, and love even when the future remains unknown.

Check out my song of the week to go along with the text! Would You Harbor Me by Sweet Honey in the Rock

Peace,

Pastor Katie