One Gift of #COVID? The Chance to #Walk by Faith

I just happened to overhear the news, the way I often learn of happenings in our school.  The decision is final, there will be no #prom this year, again.  Now, we have been fortunate.  We are in school, and will have some sort of graduation, but this senior class, just like last year’s, won’t be dressing up, buying corsages, worrying about who to go with, something most of us took for granted.  It’s funny how much we are creatures of habit-more than we realize.  That’s one gift COVID has given us, one of a few, the opportunity to actually follow the admonishment given in James 4 warning us, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’-yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring” (James 4:13-14). 

We’ve heard this verse before-our life is but a mist, “Dust in the Wind” as Kansas would put it.  We know we are not supposed to assume any plans but are instead instructed to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4: 15).  Now, our grandparents who grew up during the depression, they knew how to comply with this strange command.  They were not guaranteed a job, food, travel, the survival of an infant, recovery from illness, and while we are not truly guaranteed any of these things, many of us have taken them for granted, until now.

In the past year, our circumstances have changed.  We have feared disease like we never thought we would in this lifetime, and some of us have suffered illness and lost loved ones.  We have cancelled vacations, and hesitated to reschedule them not knowing how open or hospitable our desired destination will be.  We have actually cancelled worship services, VBS, and Sunday School, activities which have operated rain or shine for years.  The list could go on and on. 

And as inconvenient as it is to be in the dark about the outlook of the next year, God is as happy as a father whose teenage son lost his cell phone, or better yet all technology, wrecked his car, and is forced to interact with the family again, maybe even play a game of chess.   We now must do what we should have been doing all along, tread carefully and prayerfully day by day, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8) instead of plowing headlong into every expected activity, without even consulting the Lord about his agenda for us in these unprecedented times. 

The Proverb which states, “The heart of a man plans his way, but the lord establishes his steps” (16:9), has always been true-but now, thanks to COVID, it has come to life before our eyes-whether we appreciate it or not.

So, instead of mourning the security of our predictable lives, may we “always be of good courage” knowing that we who don’t know the future must trust in the one who holds it in his hands.  For how often have we truly had our eyes opened to our true position of “groaning” mentioned in 2 Corinthians 5, our longing for our Heavenly home, “ . . . a house not made with hands”? What a gift to know that God has “prepared us for this very thing” knowing that it is good to mourn the separation we have from Christ until we finally reach our “heavenly dwelling”. For only when we realize our true desperation, often dulled by the business of life, can we “walk by faith, not by sight” as we long for our only true home.