By David Phillips
Rarely is it profitable or even advisable to sit around in a difficult situation, and wonder and brood about what may come next. But at the risk of sounding repetitious, we’ve never seen anything like this. Our culture has become drunk on freedom and liberty, so when the authorities tell us that we’ve got to stay home except to forage for the barest of necessities, its pretty hard to take. I mean, we’re accustomed to standing in long lines to get OUT of Walmart, but waiting in line to get IN is frustratingly new and different.
Every day seems to bring new challenges that were once unimagined. Social distancing, travel restrictions, stay-home or shelter-in-place orders, cancellation of routine doctor visits, the list grows daily. The closing of businesses, even just for a relatively short while, has thrown many into the unemployment lines, and interrupted everything that was ever seen as normal in their lives. Everything about our culture is designed to constantly be moving forward, so when everything comes to a grinding halt, well, it’s a very traumatic experience. The constants we have always known are starting to fall apart.
Okay, enough of the negative, you can turn on the TV and get plenty of that. Let’s think for a minute about the aspect of our lives that does not change, the one thing that cannot be altered by any earthly circumstances. There is something about us that cannot be put on hold by the events surrounding us. While many people see this feature as something that is just another in a long list of things people sometimes do, I suggest that it is the central feature about us that should always be there. Obviously, it is Christianity.
Being a devout follower of Christ is not a sideline or peripheral activity that we put on hold or lay aside when the rest of life gets hectic. It is rather the central core of who we are and what we do in all of the circumstances of earthly life. Right now, it is challenging to not let the Coronavirus become the main thing in our minds. But I suggest to you that we must let serving God be the main thing on our minds, and the Coronavirus is just another one of the many circumstances that we must deal with on the side.
Earthly circumstances may affect some of the methods we use to carry out our service to God, such as forcing us to worship remotely, via the Internet, while we are under orders to stay at home and not gather in groups of 10 or more. But, strange as it may sound, serving God effectively does not depend on human mobility. In Philippians 4, Paul speaks specifically of his physical needs, hunger and abundance and God’s provision. But I believe the principle in what he declares in verses 11-13 is abundantly true for us today as we face the modern challenges brought on by a world-wide pandemic: …for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
I would not, for a second, minimize the suffering nor even the inconvenience that people everywhere have become saddled with over the past few weeks. The daily challenges are plentiful. But they do not compare with the Lord’s blessings.
In a time when God’s people were being oppressed, slaughtered and enslaved, Jeremiah encouraged them with these words: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” – Lamentations 3:22-24