June 29th, 2021
To my friends on Facebook. Lately, I have been combining my love for studying the Bible with my love for writing. With the encouragement of a dear friend, I have decided to share my thoughts with you each Tuesday. You have my permission to share without restriction. I don't need acknowledgment or links. My prayer is that the Tuesday posts will in some way bring comfort and encouragement to anyone who reads them. I will start off today's post with a reprint from an article I wrote for my congregation's View From The Pew section of the bulletin the first day we met unrestricted after our COVID-19 isolation.
Remember The Blessings Of COVID-19
As we transition to a “pre-COVID” way of life, there is a lot for us to be thankful for, especially as it relates to our spiritual lives. We will be hearing a lot of thankfulness to God that He brought an end to the pandemic and we will be hearing a lot of how important it is that we do not let habits borne of necessity take over our lives now that we can assemble together with the saints. We will all face temptations from Satan to replace God’s plan with a substitute of convenience.
But all that being said, and very important to hear, I want us not to rush pass the wonderful blessings that came about because of the pandemic of COVID-19. We can see ways that God worked powerfully because of the pandemic. And as we transition back to a pre-COVID life, let’s not be too quick to return there without taking the blessings with us to make our future even better than it was in the past.
1. Worship With Our Family- I hope that all of us had some form of family worship to God, before COVID-19, where parents and children sat down together to center their time on worshiping God. But I suspect that the pandemic brought that holy practice to our family at a depth not seen before March of 2020. As we transition back to congregational worship, let’s not replace our family worship together with our collective worship. Let’s make both stronger post COVID and let us all draw nearer to God, 7 days a week and not just Sundays and Wednesdays. Can we praise God for how He used this illness to bring our families closer together in our worship to Him?
2. The Proliferation of God’s Word- Pre-pandemic, we were blessed with the ability to search the internet for biblical resources and videos that were Bible based, but when the pandemic hit, God used it to throw that proliferation into overdrive. Preachers who had never published an article online or recorded a YouTube sermon began doing so in droves. And just as Paul’s threats against the 1st century church spread the preaching of the Gospel everywhere, this terrible disease became the catalyst for godly men to spread the Gospel in a way it hasn’t seen in a long time. Brothers and sisters, shouldn’t we praise God that because of the pandemic, there has never been an easier time to fill our hearts with good, wholesome godly thoughts; never a better time to dig into the rich truths of God’s word with such a new abundance of resources that were not available before March of 2020? Let us pray to our God in thanks for the feet of these preachers who preach the word in our hearing. While we still need to vet all we hear through prayerful study, let’s not overlook this bountiful feast made possible by COVID-19.
3. Confirmation That God Is In Control- When things are going great, it’s easy to pay lip service to this principle. But when our world is up-ended, Satan tempts us to lose faith that God is still in control. We wring our hands because it’s often hard for us to see how we can continue. COVID-19 did, and continues to scare us, and rightly so. But even a deadly pandemic is no match for our God who told us that even the gates of hell itself is no match for His kingdom. What COVID-19 reminded us is that as bad as things may look, God will always provide a way for His people, His church. Who knows what new “pandemic” awaits us in our future? However, having gone through the last year, we will be even more ready to face it in the knowledge that it will not be too powerful for God to handle. And as bad as the next pandemic, persecution, or assault against the kingdom of God may be, He is able to thwart the evil it brings and turn it into good for us, His people. Can we praise God for the privilege of witnessing His mighty power and providence demonstrated as we lived through the COVID-19 pandemic?
Let’s be joyful as we all move back to a pre-COVID existence, but let us all make that journey better by not forgetting the wonderful blessings that our God wrought because of this terrible world-wide disease. And let us pray that our future is even better than the past because of His providence we witnessed in 2020.