Connie and I have never experienced this level of a world-wide pandemic before this. I suspect neither have most of you who read this. It has appeared to me people have one of two basic perspectives of this anomaly of nature. The one extreme has high levels of anxiety or while the others are eagerly anticipating what flowers of opportunity will bloom once this settles down. Francis Chan, a great author, pastor, missionary, and influencer recently said he did not believe life would return to normal as so many are longing to happen. How can it when a person loses a parent, family member or friend in death or to poor health. Without all they have contributed life cannot be as usual. So, what will life after this international pandemic look like? Only God knows.
Yes, only God knows, and He has every part of it scripted out for each person. Really! Few of us have experienced a pandemic of this life-threatening status so we tend to erroneously think this must be new to God too. The truth is, the Bible records many famines (depressions), plagues and many other offensive things. He was God before and after each of them. Furthermore, He leveraged each painful event to bring good out of it for His purpose and people.
It’s difficult for us to appreciate the reality of an invisible God sovereignly doing as He pleases in our lives because we can’t see God doing anything. Instead we see ourselves or other people acting and events occurring, and we evaluate those actions and events according to our own fears, preferences, pain or plans. Joseph’s brothers maliciously sold him into slavery but in due time Joseph recognized that through his brothers’ evil actions God was acting for the good. God used a famine to lead his father Jacob and his tribe to Egypt, the very place God had revealed to Abraham his offspring would go and be afflicted for four hundred years (Gen. 15:13).
The true disciple lives in a higher realm where he frequently “sees” invisible things. It is the temporal realm that causes anxiety: that pandemic, that treacherous cancer, that empty pocketbook, that rejection. But once he/she sees the wealth of the invisible world, the temporal sphere fades into insignificance.
Everything visible is subject to decay—you and I must not forget that. Bodies grow old, houses fall into ruin, the earth erodes, and the sun like the stars is subject to death. But everything invisible cannot decay. The human spirit does not die and God Himself is beyond change and decay. Faith, hope, love—all characteristics of the invisible world, will exist forever. Jesus told of the rich fool who was the man who forgot that his spirit was eternal and thereby spent all his time comforting his body (Lk 12:20). Sound familiar?
Paul said we are to live “by faith, not by sight” (2 Co 5:7, ESV). Abraham looked for an invisible city (Heb 11:8-10); Elijah, saw invisible armies (2 Ki 6:17); and Moses followed an invisible God (Heb 11:27). John wrote this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave [including those who crave them]. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever (1 John 2:17, NLT2). What is it that you have been looking at–the visible or the invisible? If you have been looking at what is going on around you, this pandemic is the opportunity God is giving you to do a mental and spiritual reset. When you do, you will be like a wide-eyed child sitting on the curb eagerly watching for the next thing the parade will pass before your eyes.