Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez on Unsplash
Everywhere we look today, with every connection we make, every phone conversation or (more and more often) every Zoom meeting we have, we see our “hearts and hands raised” in a new prayer – “Hear Us, O Lord.”
Fear and a growing level of uncertainty are all around us. What was “normal” weeks ago no longer seems to exist. Every cable channel, every online news website, gives us hourly tallies of what seems to be an unprecedented and perhaps even unstoppable attack on our way of life.
“We’ve never seen this before,” many say. But God has.
Ecclesiastes 1:9 tell us “Whatever has happened before will happen again. Whatever has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.” The current crisis will pass, as surely as countless plagues have come and gone.
Yet, God also offers us opportunities in every situation – new chances to accept His Will, to hear His Word in every aspect of our lives, to know He is Lord and Savior for everyone.
Fear is the real “Invisible Enemy,” not a virus we will eventually beat. Fear stands between us and the trust God asks we place in Him. Fear tells us the lie that God isn’t with us, that He can’t help us in our times of need, that He doesn’t hear our prayers.
One blessing that will emerge from this time of uncertainty is a world of unbelievers seeing, perhaps for the first time, the true face of Christ’s Church. Whether it’s an organization and a church working together to meet the increased needs of their community, or a local church organizing food and supplies delivery runs. God’s Body is leaning in and looking for ways to aid and bring comfort.
Jesus taught “Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but can’t kill the soul. Instead, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” (Matthew 10:28 CEB) Those words are as true today as they were when he calmed the fears of those who first heard them two thousand years ago.
Trust. Belief. Surrender. This is how we are rethinking and resetting what we know as believers.
