I eagerly prepared to preach after a long delay from in-person worship gatherings with my church family. In God’s providence, the world had shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic. Months later as I sat there preparing, I felt the emotion with which Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 2:17: “But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more...




