It seems pretty prophetic, to me, that this is the year 2020. The year when our vision hopefully clarifies. Nothing like a good ol’ worldwide upheaval to bring a little clarity!
Right now, we are being stripped off all the superficial, all that we have tailored our lives to rely on. The entire world is frantic. We have trusted in health, comfort, steady income. We have trusted in our own semblance of control over what we believe we have falsely believed that we owned… like “our own” lives, jobs, health and family. We have trusted in ourselves to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and when all else fails, we have trusted in our distractions to occupy our minds and steer us away from what we feel is failing.
This moment in history is a free-fall. But where will we land? This is the question of the hour… or rather the month, or year, or generation.
Perhaps this is the moment when our vision will clear.
I believe it is meant to bring clarity to the Church. We are being given an opportunity to re-adjust our spectacles. What were we hoping in before that has now proved unsteady? Are we more concerned with the pleasures of this life than we were with the pleasure of His Presence? Are we more preoccupied with facebook than His Book? Are we more concerned with church services than unity, love and delight in the Bride of Christ? Are we more concerned with temporal financial security than our neighbor’s eternal security? And are we more concerned with this life or the next? Suffering on this planet doesn’t even compare with the glory that awaits!
I believe this is also an opportunity for the entire world to see that the only sure foundation is Jesus! There is no other. Someday, whether from corona, old age, a car accident, cancer, or a whole host of other things, the breath WILL leave our lungs and there is only One who the grave cannot keep contained. We, the Church, whether quarantined or not, will celebrate this on Sunday. I hope we celebrate in such a way that the earth trembles like it did in Josiah’s day, when they celebrated the Passover, and like it did when that immovably heavy stone rolled out from in front of His tomb! He is the One who offers eternal life on the other side of death’s passage, if we place our hope in Him now. He promises to be a rock solid foundation for those who trust Him, even in the most uncertain of times. For the one who trusts Jesus, this is all purposeful and we know that He is not caught off-guard by this pandemic. If you have not put your hope in Him yet, there is nothing certain in these uncertain times, but Him. Today is the day to turn and have hope!
When such crisis hits the globe like an Atomic Bomb and we have nowhere to turn for shelter (but God), all will settle, but it will settle differently than before. We are experiencing that right now. Our lives have been flipped over like a snow globe and we are finding out what settles and where. We also have a chance to see what was loose and insecure before the globe flipped. May this year, 2020, bring our spiritual vision into 20/20, and may we find the glory, hope and purpose that only He brings! May we stop looking at our belly-buttons and all this fear, and remember the King on the Throne. The one who died on Friday, but rose on Sunday!
Space 4/8/20
