Fear or Friend – Psalm 46:1–3

“God is our refuge and strength,
a very sufficient help in troubles.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth change,
and though the mountains totter into the midst of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though mountains shake with its surging water.”

May I be bold enough to add, “though a virus infects throughout the earth, and though people fall, though economies totter, though our healthcare system shakes”.

We are not a people accustomed to uncertainty.  We are accustomed to regular returns, predictable profits, and a pill for every malady. We are accustomed to the refuge of a regular wage and the strong towers of a robust hospital.

Where does the anxiety of this time come from?  Why do we hear of despair from COVID’s destruction?

The earth has changed, and our response has been an innate cry for help in these time of trouble. That cry has been direcred largely toward the government.  The government, who according to the news, should possess all the resources for sufficient help.

Yet, this fact reveals the greatest deficiency of our modern world.  Society’s cry reveals it’s misplaced trust for refuge and strength.  Our greatest help in times of trouble is never the institutions of man nor the strength of one’s net worth.  

COVID is a merely another revelation of our greatest vulnerability.  We are a society in a fallen world, full of sinful people without sufficient help against the troubles of coming eternity.

Therefore, COVID is a blessing.  Any crisis that awakens a misplaced cry, serves the helpless by informing them of a trust that has drifted from the true source of strength and refuge to an illusion.

Uncertainty is a friend.  A friend does not allow loved ones to meander into destruction with insufficient refuge.  This current uncertainty can be that friend if we allow it to reveal were we have placed out trust.
https://ref.ly/Ps46.1-3 via the Logos Bible Android app.

More Contagious than COVID-19 – 2 Corinthians 13:5

“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize regarding yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are unqualified?”

Well, I have been infected. 

I have been infected by a foreign contagion but it is not the COVID-19 virus.  I was infected so long ago that I often forget that I am a carrier of this particular infectious agent.  

I have been watching the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.  It has changed the very society on the planet in a matter of weeks.  This virus has changed what we do, how we do it, and when we do it.  

I have been reminded of the pandemic that changed my life.  I was infected by a contagion in my youth.  This contagion has a 100% mortality rate.  It is the most deadly foreign contagion the world has ever known.  

I caught this contagion from my family.  In fact, they deliberately exposed me to it.  It is transmitted by breath, words, and my parents breathed it upon me, repeatedly.  

Eventually, this foreign agent caught hold of me, changed my eyesight, and altered my mind.  The progression of this “disease” eventually resulted in my death.  

I did die, but no one moarned.  There was no funeral.  I did not become a statistic on the news.  The reason no one moarned was because the same thing that killed me, brought me back to life.  I came back to life but I now live totally dependent upon the same contagion that originally infected me.  

The pandemic that resulted in my infection has not ended.  It has been going on for more than 2,000 years.  There are periodic flare ups.   At times, those infected act like they are trying to infect others. Most of the time, those infected seem to be taking precautions to avoid the spread:

• Covering their mouths to prevent the transmission.
• Sanitizing all they touch to remove any trace of contagion.
• Self-quarantine themselves with only the infected.

I realize that I often live according to the recommended measures used to control a pandemic like COVID-19.  Yet, the infection that killed me and brought me back to life is the best thing that ever happened to me.  

I want to infect the uninfected. I understand the breath that I try to breathe upon them, may smell like death but I can infect them if I use breath mints.  

Therefore, I am going to strive to live according to the counter -measures of a pandemic:

• I will not self-quarantine myself within my communities of infected.
• I will not cover my mouth in hopes of not offending the uninfected. I will breathe, sneeze, cough and maybe even vomit on as many as possible.
• I will slather my contagion on everything I do, say, and think.
• I will continue to touch my eyes with infected fingers to remove as many logs as possible.

I have been infected by Jesus Christ.  I would have died if that had not happened but now I am alive, eternally because there were people who did not follow the rules of a pandemic.

Therefore, I will follow the rules of the temporary COVID-19 pandemic but I will try to break every rule of the Jesus Christ pandemic. I would love to see another pandemic flare up (revival) in my lifetime but that starts with the infected being irresponsible with the contagion of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

So, go get tested to see if you’re in Jesus Christ.  You can do a self-help but if you don’t know how, then head to a local clinic (Church).  They can test you. If you’re not infected, hopefully, they will breath on you and you will become like me.  If you are infected, then go out and become an epicenter for this glorious pandemic.

Galatians 2:19–20 (LEB): I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and that life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

https://ref.ly/2Co13.5 via the Logos Bible Android app.