How to respond to the Coronavirus
God is doing something with you right now through this pandemic. It will take time, and its result will depend on how you respond to what is being done to you. It’s not like what God did to you, to save you. God saved you as a gift, not a cooperation. But now that we have become His people, He molds us, trains us, tests us, and sometimes, even wrestles with us, as he did with Jacob in the book of Genesis.
God has taken your world and shaken it. He’s made the future, a future of suspense, suspense because we know that something is going to happen, but we don’t know what.
In short, we can respond by drawing closer to God and what He calls us to be, or we can respond by drifting away from God and shrinking into ourselves. Drawing towards Him leads to greater strength, insight, self-control, effectiveness, and peace. Drifting away from Him leads to hardness of heart towards other people, but especially your self.
How do you draw closer to God during this crisis?
By humbling yourself, opening your will to what God is laying upon you. Don’t so much seek to escape you trouble, as use your trouble. Instead of rhetorically, thinking, “Why is this happening to me?” assuming that there is no good answer. Seriously think, “Indeed, why is this happening to me?” then both find and create an answer.
You find and create an answer by following Jesus Christ. And you follow Jesus through the Bible that He has placed in your hands. It reveals -
what He has done, (died for you, rose again, and gave you his Holy Spirit)
what He is doing, (seeking the lost, the lonely, and the dying) and
what He will do, (lift you up, bless you, and take you to be with Himself and His people.)
Each day, that you are either cooped up, or over worked, or both. Take a Word from your Savior and bind it to this experience. Then when it’s done, people who meet you will respond as the Pharisees responded to Peter and John “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13
In the future, we will all find out what we did in the time of the virus. Let it be so, that people will “recognize that you had been with Jesus.”
God has taken your world and shaken it. He’s made the future, a future of suspense, suspense because we know that something is going to happen, but we don’t know what.
In short, we can respond by drawing closer to God and what He calls us to be, or we can respond by drifting away from God and shrinking into ourselves. Drawing towards Him leads to greater strength, insight, self-control, effectiveness, and peace. Drifting away from Him leads to hardness of heart towards other people, but especially your self.
How do you draw closer to God during this crisis?
By humbling yourself, opening your will to what God is laying upon you. Don’t so much seek to escape you trouble, as use your trouble. Instead of rhetorically, thinking, “Why is this happening to me?” assuming that there is no good answer. Seriously think, “Indeed, why is this happening to me?” then both find and create an answer.
You find and create an answer by following Jesus Christ. And you follow Jesus through the Bible that He has placed in your hands. It reveals -
what He has done, (died for you, rose again, and gave you his Holy Spirit)
what He is doing, (seeking the lost, the lonely, and the dying) and
what He will do, (lift you up, bless you, and take you to be with Himself and His people.)
Each day, that you are either cooped up, or over worked, or both. Take a Word from your Savior and bind it to this experience. Then when it’s done, people who meet you will respond as the Pharisees responded to Peter and John “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13
In the future, we will all find out what we did in the time of the virus. Let it be so, that people will “recognize that you had been with Jesus.”
1 Peter 5:6-11
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.