I hesitated to write a blog post about our present-day state of affairs. It felt foolish and futile to add to the steady stream of noise continually coming out of our phones, computers, and televisions.
And yet, here we are. It is a shared experience unlike anything we have seen before, and so while we’re tired of hearing about it, we’re also connected through a common physical reality like never before. We are both compassionate and suspicious toward our neighbors. We are anxious for connection and community but striving to maintain distance. It is bizarre and surreal, and it’s the elephant in the proverbial room that doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon.
I think we would do well to not forsake or waste this time. I don’t mean waste in the same sense that the culture does–you don’t have to pick up a new hobby, finish a major home project, or become the stay-at-home parent that Pinterest dreams are made of while you’re sheltering-in-place. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these things, but please don’t allow the latest blog or Facebook post to become a source of guilt and striving; another standard to measure up to. The standard of living is Christ alone. I pray that we would use this time to pray and seek the face of God through his Word. I pray that the idols we’ve been ignoring would be brought down low while we’re home. I pray that we would bear so much fruit during the coming weeks that the world has no other choice but to glorify the God we claim.
Since January 1 we’ve been reading chronologically through the Bible. We’ve seen countless instances where God uses an unlikely circumstance or person to accomplish his good works. It’s so remarkably backward, but so beautifully characteristic of the God we serve. And isn’t that true still today? Do we believe God can still use wildly outlandish means for accomplishing his end? If God can use a fearful idol-worshiper like Gideon or an arrogant oath-breaker like Samson to deliver his people and make his name known among the nations, how much more can He use COVID-19 and a church of people who aren’t allowed to go to church? The Lord of Lords is bigger than a virus, a shutdown, an economic crisis, and the personal struggles we face. This is not to diminish what you’re going through on an individual level: we are allowed to grieve the loss of jobs, income, community, and normalcy. But to that end, we cry out to God and begin to recognize where even those good or neutral things were beginning to replace God in our hearts and lives.
I’ve tried over the last two weeks or so to define this season. Are we in the wilderness? Are we on the mission field? Are we in the end times? The correct answer is likely a combination of all of the above, and then some. My fear is that this unprecedented era will be like so many short-term missions many of us have gone on before (although this is likely to be closer to six weeks than six days). We arrive at the end of the time regretting that which we didn’t do–we didn’t read our Bibles enough, we didn’t share the Gospel enough, we didn’t spend time in prayer and study and worship like we should have. We lament the time lost as we are swept in the unrelenting current of business-as-usual. The advantage we have now, however, is the lack of a deadline. We truly don’t know when this will be over, or when life as we know it will return. Everyday the “end” seems further and further away. But what if that uncertainty is a gift in itself?
We can’t really plan or prepare for the future, so we must acknowledge the present. I picture God wrestling my need for control out of my cramped, weary hands, and handing me Lamentations 3:22-24 instead. I rest in his presence and promises because there’s nowhere else for me to turn. This pandemic has stripped away my career, my paycheck, my family, my friends, my false sense of security. It is painful, the pruning of these branches, but what remains is my Jesus, and he is far better than any of those other things.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:25-34
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
