COVID-19. That's something I'm sure all of us are sick of hearing. I've come to the point where I just don't know if I can take another second of hearing about this virus. It's taken over everything: our lives, our families, our jobs, our finances, our health, our social life, and even our spiritual life. My Facebook page, phone, TV, and ultimately my mind are clogged with information, of which I don't even know what is right and wrong. It seems like it's something new every day and it's just so hard to keep up with. One thing I'm sure of is God's never-changing Truth and Presence in my life.The Lord is pushing us outside of our comfort zones in a big way, but I believe He is speaking to us in small ways. I'll be honest, when I think about this time period as a whole, I still hold a lot of disdain, anger, and emotions for it. It has been hard for me to make peace with the fact that I will likely never go to prom, will miss out on all my special senior activities, and I that I may not even be able to have a graduation ceremony... something I've waited for my entire life. Part of the pain for us, I think, is that the expectations we had for how our lives were going to go this year are not being met. Of course, I expected that I would graduate like every other senior class. Mothers expected that they would be able to have a beautiful and "normal" birth in a hospital. The list goes on. It's not that we shouldn't have expected these things because no one could have predicted this virus, but that we are so incredibly comfortable and reliant on our own plans and expectations that we take them as truth and as facts of what will happen to us or for us. God is calling us back to reliance and trust in His plans, and that is the first step to hearing Him in this crisis. We have to cast our expectations aside, as painful as it is. We want so much to hold onto these things because we want so badly to be in control of our lives. This is a process. Jesus calls us to take up our cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23). Part of being dedicated to God is not just daily nailing our sin to the cross, but also nail up our hardships, pain, and expectations to be crucified with Christ and exchanged for His redeeming Love and Mercy. Let's take our expectations, plans, and hurt and nail it to the cross to be redeemed by Jesus. Once we decide to do that and continue to do so, we can hear the voice of God more clearly because the voice of the enemy has been diminished. Here's what God has been showing me...It's no coincidence that this pandemic is happening during the Passover and Lenten season. I believe God is using this time to solidify and sanctify our understanding of the Bible. God doesn't work in coincidence, God works with purpose. Exodus 12 + The GospelsIn the Passover story, God sent plagues to show the Pharaoh His power and the blood of sacrificed lambs protected God's people from death from the final plague. In the same way that the blood of the lambs created a shield over the Israelites, Jesus shows us through the Gospels and through the message of the Cross that His blood covers and protects us from the condemnation of our sin and from the plagues of this world. God sent Jesus to show the devil His power, just as God sent the plague to show the Pharaoh His power. We do not know if God sent this plague, but as we are God's people, we can plead the blood of Jesus over our families for protection and deliverance from this plague we call the corona virus. The 40 days + The ExileIn Matthew 4, Jesus fasts and prays in the Judaean Desert for 40 days and 40 nights. He was in isolation, with little resources around Him. It was just Him and God. Our lives have been stripped down from normalcy, our resources are diminishing, we are isolated, too. In the Lenten season, in which we are in now, Christians commonly fast for 40 days in order to emulate Jesus' fast and temptation in that 40 day period. I believe now that the Lord Our God is mandating a 40+ day fast from busyness. God is jealous for us: our hearts, our minds, our time. He wants to fill our every minute. As a world we have become "too busy" for God. I believe He is using this to push us into a period of fasting and exile, much like He did with the Isrealites when they did not obey the command of the Sabbath year. God put them in exile: a mandatory sabbath to allow them to return to Him. Only after they endured a period of mandatory isolation and rest did they continue to obey the Sabbath year command. Read more on increasing the Sabbath rest in your life. Perhaps God is calling 2020 to be a sabbath year. Perhaps He is using this as an exile to bring us to a realization that we must take His command to rest seriously.We are selfish, but we can be selflessIt's now become a meme that there is no toilet paper in the stores... at all. It is funny and frustrating all at once, but more deeply, it reveals our human condition. At the beginning of the national lock down, I really think God was trying to send us a message. We are selfish; pushing people aside, breaking into cars to steal toilet paper or groceries, literally fighting over a package of whatever essential item we need. Abortion clinics still open for business to continue to add to their billion dollar industry, as they take PPE away from COVID-19 doctors, brutally murder children in the womb and put women's lives at risk. They say in a crisis the truth of who people are comes out, and God was showing us the core of who we were in our flesh. The greed. The selfishness. The self-indulgence. 2 Timothy 3:2 says that "[In the end times] People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy..." God was opening our eyes to show us that we are those people. As this time ticks on, I see more goodness in us. I believe we have in a sense returned to who God wants us to be. We see the kind deeds: a woman buying groceries for an older couple afraid to go into the store, small businesses sewing hundreds of masks, Christians standing 6 feet apart outside of abortion clinics praying for women -- risking their lives to save those of others. And of course, we see the selflessness of essential workers, especially doctors. We ARE the ChurchA widely debated topic is the essentially of going to church services on Sundays. Though there are valid reasons to both attending corporate worship services and holding your own in your home, this quarantine has forced us to knock down the walls that separate us by congregation and denomination and just BE THE CHURCH. There comes a time where the church needs to be "deployed" into the world as Christs' soldiers. We are trained as disciples by our pastors, our brothers and sisters, and our congregation as a whole, but we cannot go to our church buildings any longer. We have no where to go but out into the world. God is calling us out of our comfort zones and into the hard work of loving those around us deeply and selflessly. More than ever God wants us to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in this broken world. (But social distance still!!) 1 Timothy 5 There is so much more that God has been showing me, but more personally in my own heart of hearts. I pray that you would be able to let go of your expectations and be able to hear Him through this strange time. Please let me know in the comments what the Lord has been teaching you -- I want to know!! And please don't hesitate to leave prayer requests in the prayer corner. This time is hard for all of us, and I'd be glad to pray for your needs to be met. One more thing...His Will | My Faith now has a Facebook page! Please like and share to get the Word of the Lord out to more people, as well as to get updates on new blog posts and other exciting things! Learn more about Jesus Christ ➳
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About the Author
Hi! I'm Angie! I'm a college student, worship leader, pro-life advocate, future teacher, youth ministry intern, and above all else, follower of Jesus Christ. I would love to get to know you! Read by Topic
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