COVID-19

A global pandemic. A shelter-in-place order. Worshipping with our churches from our living rooms, allowed to leave our homes only if necessary. Suffering. Weeping. Meeting new babies through glass windows  — cancelled trips and weddings, postponed funerals. Fear of financial collapse. Fear of the future as we pick up the pieces and count our losses and try to regroup. Death.

We feel the effects of the fall. That moment in history where mankind brought upon itself all the horror of disease, loneliness and shame, fear, hopelessness, separation and ultimately — death. The pain of this broken world can be masked by ease and temporary pleasure. The blow can be softened with money, distracted by Netflix, comforted with food. We work and laugh and gather and eat and buy and scroll and watch and sleep and then do it all again the following day.

But for the first time in a long time, we are all looking up from our phones. We have collectively paused. The whole world has stopped.

When we stop, we see. By the grace of God we see our world for what it is — incredibly, incredibly fragile. Crippled over one virus that cannot even be seen by the naked eye.

By the grace of God we also see who we are. When our world is in upheaval and everything in our lives changes in one fell swoop, we often find we see ourselves anew, as if looking into a mirror. We see fear and anger, disappointment and despair, laziness and hopelessness. We see things in ourselves we have rarely, if ever, seen before.

We see all the things God sees and knows — we see the real person that He loves. It gives us a chance to wrestle and repent over sins that lay hidden before this ugly time in our history.

And it gives us a chance to move. Not outside of our home at this point — we must continue to protect the vulnerable — but as we see the people around us in confusion and pain and fear, there has been no better time to use our voices to answer questions with love and compassion and strength and hope. To use the devices we hold in our hand and on our lap to speak truth into a confused, broken society.

Who in our lives needs to hear of the gospel that has power over disease and death, offers real life?!

Because for the first time in forever — they’re listening.