COVID-19 is a Revealer

copy-MB-COVID19.jpgIn case you haven’t noticed, since COVID-19 Coronavirus hit the earth, things are being revealed.
The first revelation to me are the varied “experts” on COVID-19 who aren’t medical professionals or scientists, in fact are people who don’t even practice medicine who offer medical advice.
I respect and appreciate those who have studied and given their time and lives to research and study on these matters we face today. They are the ones I give my attention to, when they inform and warn us, I consider what they have to say.
An yet, with what we face today, some things are beyond what many of them can even understand.
But there are things around COVID-19 we can certainly see, note and discuss.
One of the things I’ve seen in my own life since this pandemic, is learning to guard my daily news intake. Coronavirus is infecting and removing people from the planet, that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored. They are people, not numbers. But we all process differently. I believe in a balance of the practical and the spiritual.
Since the quarantine, I’m now a temporary “homebody homeboy.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love going to the ocean and enjoying the scenery, people watching, sampling restaurants, going to museums etc, but I’m finding God in the places He requires me to be, these days that’s home! By the way, my wife Brenda said, “Yes, God does make house calls”.
Another thing revealed has been folks unwilling to shift into crisis mode. This is a serious pandemic, and there are those still those unwilling to either accept the times we are in or believe breaking laws will make it go away. One such local paddle boarder got a revelation the hard way, while on the ocean after signs prohibiting access to the ocean were posted. The police were NOT having it, he was arrested.
Change can be hard, but noncompliance even harder. These times are uncomfortable, these days are perilous, but we must hope in God.
When you belong to Him you don’t see the times the same way others do in fact, you were expect them to go haywire, especially when a nation or even nations stray from God.
Elijah went to the king (Ahab) in his day, and warned Him in (1 Kings 17:1) heaven would be closed and no rain until he (Elijah)said so…
He actually predicted the crisis!
Imagine that, your first assignment as one of God’s spokesperson’s, is to tell the king his country will be cursed with drought. Elijah knew he could predict that outcome because God’s people were led away to serve idols instead of the true and living God, and Elijah was clear this was prohibited (Deuteronomy 11:16-17)
This act affected the whole nation. Who knew? People were complaining about a problem (drought) that wouldn’t be solved by complaining about it… but who was giving attention to the God holding the grievance???
We are in a similar place ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters. All of our norms are dissipating, it’s not time to fear its time to return to the Lord.
Some are praying for their churches to open again, others their business’s to open again, still others for their favorite coffee spot to open again but that is not what God is calling prayer, in this season.
This prayer is one of returning without the knowledge of ever having gone.
God is speaking in this time to let us know what a Country artist penned years ago, … “the whiskey ain’t workin anymore”, in other words, what we showed God before in tears alone is now requiring something more substantive than before, more sincere, God wants us, not just our attention! A complete heart, a full return back to Him. Join me in asking God what is His pleasure in this season. He has the answers we seek.
We won’t be able to paddle board ourselves away from this one.
Anablepsis.