Another mandate to stay home. Another news conference giving dire statistics. Another reason that I wished that I hadn’t turned on the news.
On the day to day, I seem to be doing fine, and I know without a shadow of doubt that it’s because God’s grace is sufficient for each day. It’s when I begin to look down the road, to April 30th, even beyond, that my heart begins to beat quickly and the walls begin to cave in.
When will this end? When will life return to normal? And even when it does, how will we begin to reassimilate into society? How does this even happen?
And as crazy as this seems, as quickly as I wish it would end, I wish it to stay.
Because it’s causing me to draw closer to the Lord; to examine my life. It’s making me stop and think, “What’s most valuable?” It’s making me ponder on the thought that I’ve never been more in the same place as my neighbor across the world.
Mostly, it’s making me wonder what God is up to, because friend, He is most definitely up to something. And for the life of me, I don’t want to miss it.
Sometimes when I want to get my child’s attention, especially when she was younger, I will gently grab her arm and bend down to meet her eyes. In her busyness and twirling and singing, she sometimes won’t hear what I am trying to say. But when I cause her to stop and look at me in my eyes, I can then speak to her and have her undivided attention.
What if this COVID-19 is just that- the Lord gently grabbing our arms while we are in the midst of our very busy lives, and bending down to have our undivided attention in order to speak with us?
Will your response be that of a compliant child, pausing to listen and take in what’s being said; or, will it be the one of a defiant child, angrily snatching her arm away to get back to the twirling, dancing, and singing?
Oh Lord, how I desire my response to echo David in Psalm 27:8, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.’”; and Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:10, “Then the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for Your servant is listening.’”
I can think of no better week to be still and know that He is God (Psalms 46:10).