One of my fun projects is updating our church photo directory. I shared the intention in my annual report last March, and now I’m on a roll to complete the update so I can include it in my next annual report. A friend and church member has been taking photos. People have been submitting their short descriptions of three things they enjoy or are passionate about. And new this year, I’m asking everyone to share a favourite Bible verse. This adds something new to our photo directory and gives us opportunity to encourage one another with Scripture.

I’ve had some good conversations with people about their favourite Scripture verses and about the challenge of choosing just one to share. Some have asked for their verse in a specific translation. One long-time member shared with me that she chooses a Bible verse for every year.

That’s when I decided to choose a verse of Scripture to go with my 2026 word of the year: centred. The word doesn’t appear in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible that I often use on this website, or in the New International Version that we often read in our Sunday worship. But I was delighted to find this in The Voice Bible:

The Voice isn’t as strictly literal as other English translations that render the second half of the verse more simply: “whose hope is in the Lord their God.” Instead, The Voice is a dynamic equivalent translation that focuses not so much on word-for-word translation, but on expressing the meaning. According to the publisher, Thomas Nelson:

Through a collaboration of nearly 120 biblical scholars, pastors, writers, musicians, poets, and artists, The Voice captures the passion, grit, humor, and beauty that is often lost in the translation process. The result is a retelling of the story of the Bible in a form as fluid as modern literary works yet painstakingly true to the original manuscripts.

In the changes and challenges of this year—in the world at large, in our local communities, and in our personal lives—in the face of many concerns that pull us in different directions, and despite the multiple fractures and broken ruins in the world today—our hope can be centred. Not in ourselves or even in the people around us. Not in government or other institutions. All have a part to play, of course. We need trusted people in our lives. We need good government and healthy institutions, and to work at them. But ultimately, our help and hope is “centered in the Eternal.”

It’s significant, too, that Psalm 146:5 also calls on God as “the God of Jacob.” Our God is Eternal, forever and ever—and also the God of history, who reached out to Jacob long ago and promised to be with him (Genesis 28:10–16). Though Jacob had cheated his twin brother and deceived his father (Genesis 27:1–41), though he wrestled with God (Genesis 32:22-32), God did not abandon him. Instead, the Eternal God transformed Jacob and gave him a new name (Genesis 32:28).

For us, too, as much as we might wrestle with the injustice of this world, as we wrestle with hard questions and wrestle with God, Psalm 146 reminds us of the Eternal our God, who will never abandon us, who is our help and hope.

Blessed are those whose help comes from the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is centered in the Eternal their God—
—Psalm 146:5 (The Voice Bible)