God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. | Psalm 47:1-3
This post is written by Kim Griffith, co-leader of women’s ministry at the church.
We find ourselves in strange days. In a few short months our lives have been turned upside down and are now paused, due to COVID – 19. Over 33 million people in the United States have lost their jobs, as of today, 81,076 Americans have lost their lives. We have all become homeschooling families, grandparents are afraid to hug their grandchildren, and friends will now only engage at a minimum of 6 feet apart. We have retreated into our homes and shut the door firmly on life before the pandemic. Our rich community life has been replaced by awkward computer screen interactions, complete with digital distortion and sound delays and accidentally cutting each other off mid-sentence, in a desperate attempt to hold onto the connections we have built our lives on. We are hoping, day after day, to find the “new normal” or to just, PLEASE, go back to the “old normal”.
It is natural to be concerned with the effects of this virus on our own health and the health of those that we love. It is natural for us to mourn the loss of our “old lives” – the rhythms, activities and busyness that we, knowingly or unknowingly, built our lives and identities on. But as God’s holy and chosen people, this is not a place that we can stay for very long.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9
We are called to cry out to our Father, as we bring our overflow of emotions – fear, worry, anger, despair, boredom (and whatever else come to mind) – before our Holy God, asking Him to redeem them for His purposes. And then we get back on mission. As the apostle Peter addresses his first letter, we are to remember that we are “elect exiles”, this world is not our final home; our residence here is temporary and He is preparing us for something far greater.
God has revealed Himself to all humanity through His Word and I am confident that we can and must go there for sustenance and inspiration as to how we as believers are to conduct ourselves in these unnerving days.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
We need God’s Word to be equipped for the good work He has prepared for us. Our witness is still one of the most valuable gifts that we can offer the hurting world right now. While there is so very much of God’s plan that is not known to us:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
Romans 11:33
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12
Scripture is what God wants us to know about Himself and His purposes. It was given to us as the inerrant revelation of God and also the material that we are to search, study, and wrestle with as we live. There is a certain measure of God’s will that can be known through study of His Word; with this, He has given us instructions that we are called to actively live out. Even so, there will always remain enough unknowns that our faith will be constantly tested. As we are told in the book of James:
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
James 1:5
We are expected to ask God for wisdom (not know everything) and we can expect that he will give us wisdom without reproach. He isn’t mad about us asking, the asking is what He wants! As I have asked for wisdom, I have found a small measure of it. As believers in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice that brings us into God’s family and into eternity with Him, I think that the societal grappling with the coronavirus offers us unique opportunities. We are Gospel powered people.
Over the next few days, I would like to humbly offer a few ways in which I believe that our supernatural Gospel power equips us to walk through this.