COVID-19. The numbers are adding up, and as they increase, the intensity and fear can mount right with them. None of us living here in the industrialized world have ever experienced this kind of uncertainty and sudden loss. Everything that was typical is suddenly atypical.
If I listen to only the nightly news and my Facebook feed, the negativity and a sense of hopelessness can overtake and overwhelm. Many people are yearning for predictions that will tell us when this insanity stops, and things get back to normal.
Normal. What is normal, even? Is it “normal” to spend more time at work than we do talking to people we love? Is it “normal” to spend hours daily staring at backlit screens with fleeting images and anxiety-provoking talk? Has “normal” life led us to trust a job for identity, a bank account for security, friends for meaning, and a home for safety?
What happens when all of those things – in the span of a couple of weeks – suddenly seem like distant mirages?
I wonder if we have placed our ideals for identity, security, meaning, and safety – our hope, as it turns out – in things that are really of little lasting consequence?
What if identity, security, meaning, safety and hope come from a very different source? Maybe, just maybe “normal” needs to change.
World, turn your eyes from COVID-19 and toward God who has made everything from nothing and sustains it all with no effort whatsoever. That, friends, is where our hope comes from. He is God. From beginning to end, yesterday, today and tomorrow He never changes, never wavers, never turns His back.
Isaiah 43:13 (NLT), “From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done.”
If we keep hanging our hopes on things that can vanish so quickly, what kind of fools are we? And while all those things can, and may vanish, Jesus does not.
Today is a good day to decide to be all-in with Jesus. To acknowledge that in these tumultuous times we need someone to count on, someone who can save us. Because let’s face it. Nobody escapes this life with skin on – whether physical death comes from COVID-19 or an aged worn out body, we all physically die.
But there’s no need to die spiritually. And we can decide to live freer lives when we invest in gaining knowledge and closeness with the God who saves. So, is today your day? Will you decide today that the old “normal” has to die, that a new normal is necessary? One in which Jesus is the Savior and necessary ingredient for living hope-fully?
I hope that today is your day because I’ve made that commitment and it’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. He does not promise it will be easy, however He does promise He will always walk with us through troubled waters.
Isaiah 43:19 (NLT), For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
