Morewood Presbyterian Church

08/28/2026

Devotion for Life for August 28th, 2026

Let us pray

Immortal God, You have been present through all the changes in this world. You have seen the rise of empires and and the changing of leaders. You have seen the changing of customs and of languages. Your eyes have witnessed the beauty of love shared between families and friends and how this has moulded communities. The interconnectedness of people has come about because You have created us to be in relationship with each other and with Yourself. You have placed us in this world to be part of it, to be able to live and grow in and with nature around us.

Help us Lord to be present. Not lost in the past, not worrying about the future, not off in another world but present with You, with those around us. Lead us into the moments that are meaningful and full of purpose. Help us to be willing to go with You instead of fighting against You. Help us to not be so focused on busyness that we miss the beauty of the moments that are unfolding for us to be in today.

We pray this in the name that lights our way, in Jesus’s name, Amen.

08/27/2026

Our condolences to the Pringle, Stewart, and Carkner families

Tanya Pringle It is with deep sadness we announce that Tanya Pringle nee Stewart of Wi******er passed away peacefully at the Ottawa General Hospital on Friday, August 21, 2026, following a courageous battle with cancer, at the age of 43. Loving wife of Jon Pringle for 17 years together for

08/27/2026

Devotion for Life for August 27th, 2026

Let us pray

God of new beginnings, we pray for the students that are going back to school. For the young people that will be going for the first time, help them to get past their fears and anxieties and be able to meet new friends and to grow in their confidence. We pray for those who are anxiously awaiting to see friends they have been missing may they be able to show about their experiences and to continue on their friendship from where they left off. We pray also for those that are going to new schools, help them to be able to find their way in their new surroundings as they meet new people and have new experiences. We pray also for those that will not be going back to school, for those that have graduated and don’t have the same routine as before, help them appreciate the experiences they have had and be able to joy their new way of life.

We lift up to You the parents and care givers that are entrusting their treasured children into new people’s care, help them to trust these new people that are in their lives now. Grant them patience with themselves, the teachers, and the many people that are helping with the schooling. We ask for Your protection for the teachers, bus drivers, crossing guards, EA’s, administrative and custodial staff. Guide them as they try to create a safe and encouraging places for all people to learn and grow.

We lift these prayers to You, knowing of Your great love for all of Your people. We pray this in Jesus’s name, Amen.

08/26/2026

Devotion for Life for August 26th, 2026

Listening

As summer is drawing to a close it is hard to believe that we are already here. The temperature is changing, the days are shortening, and how we spend our days is slowly changing. School either has or will be starting up very shortly. Some will be embarking on new adventures; some will be getting back into old routines. Yet through all of these changes, we need to take time to listen.

Taking time to listen can mean pausing from what you are doing and listening. Listening to yourself, how you are speaking, how you are feeling, what has energized you and what has taken your energy. Listen to nature. Spend time listening to the harmony that is happening all around us that we haven’t created but we get to be part of. Letting go of the worries and stresses of our lives and being present in God’s creation. Listening to God helping us to reorder and balance our lives so that we can live in balance and grace.

Too often we continually go without stopping and listening. We hold on to stress and pick up more without letting go of what we already carry. We don’t take time to reset, to relax, we just try to keep going. Yet that just ends in burnout.
Stop and listen to Jesus who also stopped and listened. Allow Jesus’s words of life to lead us in our everyday lives, not into busyness, but into living.

08/25/2026

Devotion for Life for August 25th, 2026

Sharing what you know

If you know Jesus, you have something to share. As we get to know more and more about who Jesus is and what Jesus has given to us, we have a gift to share with others. This gift that is changing who we are and how we live in and see the world around us is also a gift for others to receive.
The gospel of Jesus is not a few words joined together in a catch phrase, it is a multifaceted gift that confronts not just our own sin but the sin in the systems around us, the sin in the world and the brokenness that has affected all of creation. The gospel is a light the brings hope and justice into view for people who are struggling and hurting. The gospel is also the incarnate love of God seen in and through Jesus. Jesus is the living example and representation of the relationship God is inviting each of us into. Jesus is giving us His light to live in us and to shine for all to see.
It is this light that Paul is allowing to shine when he shares the Gospel in Acts 17:16-34. He is sharing what he has experienced with the Athenians, some of them laughed at him because they thought resurrection was backwards, but others wanted to hear more. We don’t know what is going on in people’s hearts, but God does. We need to be willing to share with whom Jesus brings us into contact with. We may be planting a seed; we may be watering the seed that someone else had planted. In the end it is being faithful to trust in Jesus to do the internal work that we may never see. Yet we still allow the light that Jesus gives us to shine for others to see and feel the warmth of Jesus’s love and grace.

08/24/2026

Devotion for Life for August 24th, 2026
Unknown God
In Acts chapter 17verse 23, Paul is speaking to a group about who Jesus is. He references an alter that they had to an unknown god. Paul uses this as an opportunity to use their cultural background to talk about who Jesus is. The people had an alter to a god they did not know. This seems strange since worshiping usually involves knowing who you are worshiping. Usually, people know why they are worshiping a god. As I said Paul uses this as an opportunity to talk about who Jesus is by making a connection that was already present.
But what is some what surprising to me is that we are getting close to having a similar situation. We have values that come from God, but we are slowly forgetting about God. If we are not careful, we will have the relics of our former faith, a distant memory of why we believe what we believe and value what we value but the faith will not be alive as it was.
God is to be known, as we see in the scriptures, from the very beginning, God is in relationship with people. The heart of the Gospel is that God has come in Jesus to be in relationship and help His people. We need to continue to know who Jesus is and share that grace and love through worshiping, through loving each other and Jesus, through stopping and helping and living out Jesus’s love. This way we won’t slip into the unknown worship but be living a life of fullness and connection, meaning and purpose.

08/21/2026

Devotion for Life for August 21st, 2026

Let us pray.

God of grace and mercy, help us in times of struggles and fears. Help us when our faith is hurting and we struggle with unbelief. We live in a broken world where we face tragedies that do not make sense, heart ache that should not be, and sicknesses that claim loved ones way too soon. We live in a world where hurt is far too prevalent. Our hearts and our minds struggle to keep up and to stay grounded. Help us to trust You and to have faith especially when we are struggling because of the hurt and pain in our lives and our communities.

Speak into our lives God of Heaven and earth and quiet the chaos we are experience as You did at the very beginning of time. Be patient with us as You were with Gideon and help us to face the battles in our lives not with our own strength but firmly in Your care and life. Help us to continue to love with the unconditional love that You have shown us in Jesus and Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. May we live in the fullness of Your loving blessing each day of our lives.

We pray this all in Jesus’s loving name. Amen.

08/20/2026

Devotion for Life for August 20th, 2026
Let us pray
Glorious God, we struggle at times with the worries of life and relationships. The anxieties that fill our bodies and minds that distract us from seeing the beauty of each moment. We are distracted by the brokenness of our lives and too often miss the beauty that You are pouring into them.
Help us to pause from the worries and strife and be present with our loved ones and people close to us. Help us to be present in the living world around us. To hear and feel the life that we are part of. To be present in Your loving embrace of life and to know You in peace and to trust You to quiet the fears and anxieties of our lives.
We pray this in Jesus’s name, Amen.

08/19/2026

Devotion for Life for August 19th, 2026
Where is your faith?
Is your faith guiding you or is it something you fall back on when everything else seems to fail? Do you know what it means to live by faith or do you live by your own strength and knowledge and only talk about faith? Do you listen to yourself or the Holy Spirit?
In the Bible we see some fantastic examples of people living by faith, but for each of those examples we too often miss how similar their lives are to our everyday lives. They are completely separate from us. Many of the things they struggle with, we also struggle with. Only one person in the Bible was perfect and all the rest struggled with sin. Yet instead of giving into their sin, they asked for help, for forgiveness, guidance, wisdom, they kept being in relationship. It wasn’t until they stopped living in that relationship that the real problems started.
God recognizes that we struggle with sin. That is why He came in Jesus and sent His Holy Spirit. It is when we start leaving God because of our sin, sin starts to take precedence over faith and our relationship with God, that our real problems start to happen. The loneliness starts to kick in instead of the closeness. When we have the struggles, we feel separate instead of supported. When the life changing problems hit us, they seem overwhelming because we are not anchored by our relationship with the one who calms the storms and walks the path with us. Even the successes seem empty without the relationship of faith.
Staying in the relationship of faith that Jesus is inviting us into changes every part of our lives if we let it. Walking by faith puts life in perspective instead of the chaos that it can sometimes feel like it is. Faith is an anchor that keeps us from drifting into the storm or getting lost in the joy. Faith keeps us close to the one who calms the storm, heals the sick, and prepares a place for us in heaven. Faith helps us see that we are forgiven, loved, and never alone.

08/18/2026

Devotion for Life for August 18th, 2026
Uncomfortable presence
In Matthew 15:21-28, we have an odd and uncomfortable exchange between Jesus and a Canaanite woman. At first Jesus seems to be ignoring her which seems to be out of character for Jesus. The disciples then want Jesus to send her away. The exchange is problematic at best. It highlights the focus of Jesus’s ministry to the Jewish people; it also shows the tension between the two groups of people that has been present for hundreds of years.
Some of us have not clearly read this passage. We haven’t stopped and realized what Jesus said. We haven’t seen the words or thought about what they mean. We really haven’t seen the faith of the woman who continued to ask Jesus for help across these cultural and ethnic lines. Too often we only see the good of the one we are looking up to and skip over the reality that is staring us in the face and don’t take the time to wrestle with it.
After hundreds of years of animosity between the Canaanites and the Jewish people, a struggle we may not fully be aware of or acknowledge, there was some tension between the two groups. Jesus speaks harshly to the woman which many of us will just pass over. He says something that was probably commonly heard that highlights the separation. Whether he is referring to the woman and the Canaanite people in a harsh way or whether he is merely voicing the racism that is present in the room or whether He is quoting what had been said by Canaanites to Jewish people is unclear. All we know is that Jesus seems harsh to the woman. But the woman continues to ask Jesus for help and Jesus helps her. There is grace and love in the face of separation and animosity. And there is healing.
What was does not need to continue. New ways of living together instead of apart can happen if we are willing to see beyond our differences and deal with what separates us and live by faith instead of hate and insecurity.