He knows the number of hairs on our heads, though the number changes often, He counts the stars, and He knows how many grains of sand are on each beach. Why…because they are purposefully made. Everything God does is on purpose! Many times we shrug our shoulders and say we’ve had the worst day ever, when God has actually allowed those things to happen because He knew they would protect us from things that were much worse. We must learn to trust God. He knows what he is doing. Period.
Is God working within the boundaries of the Caronavirus? He has never not been working within our lives as individuals, families, communities, states, countries, the world and even in outer space. So, absolutely, God is intentionally reshaping our lives so that they will never be the same again. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that God has put the entire world in time out. But, why?
My father lived through the Great Depression as a child and he still had painful memories of the struggles as an elderly man. Yet, it taught him to not take things for granted and to not be wasteful. Likewise, our children will never forget the time when people were not allowed to go to church and how those same people reacted. They will never forget when their families were quarantined and how they were treated. Some children will never forget how most businesses were closed and how they only were allowed to get food from the drive thru. Other children will remember how schools cared enough to bring the much needed food, even though all schools were closed.
As adults, we see these things in a different light. We see that we have taken God for granted. We have assumed that we were in control of our own lives. We’ve learned how quickly everything we love can be taken away. We’ve learned to live without sports, concerts, parties, and most social interaction. It’s funny (not!) how it took us this long to realize we are the church and not the building! We’ve learned that fear will cause people to act irrationally and irresponsible. We’ve learned that those who work the front lines have literally been called by God to serve in those occupations. Not forgetting, we have our own personal calling. In short, we’ve learned to praise God in the storm!
The most important thing that God wants us to see more than we’ve ever seen before is that He is worthy of our praise, He is our only hope, and time is running out. No one knows when their life will end. Many save “getting right with God” for the last thing they do before death because they don’t want to be strapped down by His rules. What they don’t see is that without God, life is useless. The Bible says that God is love. We can’t truly even love our spouses until we have the love of God within us! The day we become Christians is the day we have real life and have it more abundantly.
If you have watched the news lately (my guess is that you have…who can avoid it…right,) you’ve seen the thousands of people who have died of the Caronavirus. Some of those people were ready to go. God called them home. They went to a place far better than we have on this earth! Unfortunately, it is my belief that there were far more people who were not ready for death. I make this assumption based on the fact that many foriegn countries, that have more deaths than America thus far, do not allow Christianity to be shared. “How could a loving God be so cruel,” you may ask.
Everyone has a predetermined birthdate and a death date by our creator. It is up to each of us to choose to follow God before our time runs out. The Caronavirus was sent, in part, to remind us that our time on Earth is shorter than we think. In fact, during this time of severe Caronavirus sickness, God sees a much greater sickness … SIN, where people are dying without the hope of Heaven. Yet, they don’t have to die lost, they choose to not allow Christ to save them. God will not push himself on anyone. Thus, he has chosen to be our alarm clock. The sounds of the times are almost deafening and call us to wake up!
In Mark 2:17, Jesus said, “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
As I was preparing for this blog, God reminded me of a term I had heard, but I had to look it up to know where He was leading me…The Balm of Gilead. What I found was monumental. If we know Jesus, we’re going to Heaven because his grace is far greater than our sin. His blood is the balm (medicine) that heals the deepest wounds of sin!
Friends, we are in time-out because our time on Earth is short and drawing to a close, but Eternity is forever. We need to make reservations now, or we don’t get in! We who are Christians, should be more adamant about sharing God’s love and word!
