*Please forgive the lack of question marks in this post. My question mark key was not working.*
I haven't had much time for Scripture study lately but my mind has gone often to the judgments of God and to plagues. I recall the 'stories' of the plagues I have read in my beloved Bible, the ones I grew up hearing. Back then those plagues and all the other Bible stories were like fairy tales. Tall tales. Amazing tales of a God I did not understand but rarely doubted was there.
These days I'm better acquainted with Scripture and with God. I understand so much more and I realize that those 'stories' I grew up hearing are as far from fairy tales as one can get. Noah and the flood isn't the fun story it was when I was a kid. Back then I imagined life when all the animals in the world just magically arrived, two by two, and walked right into this giant boat that God ordered made just for them. I imagined what life might have been like to live inside that boat with all those animals. As a kid I never once considered what became of the people not inside the boat. Somehow, my childish mind just simply never thought of them.
Maybe that's for the best because rather than being a fairy tale, the story of Noah's ark is nearly a horror story. At least it is from a human standpoint. From a Scriptural standpoint...God was more than patient and he held off far longer than most people probably would if they were in His place. Still...a child's mind probably shouldn't think of everyone on earth dying except for eight people. And a child should probably focus on the magic of a baby in a basket being saved out of a river and not on the hundreds (thousands) of babies that were murdered.
And so in my child's mind, the Lord, thankfully, made all those plagues in Scripture seem like fairy tales and I failed to take in that they were nothing close to a fairy tale. Then I grew up and eventually came to understand so much more about God and Scripture and I understand now what those plagues were. Judgments from God. His wrath. His holy anger turned on a sinful people.
And now we are living in a time where life is nothing like anything we have ever known before. We are living in 2020, a year that pretty much blew in with a pandemic. We are told to stay at home, stay away from people, keep ourselves safe.
People in town are wearing masks and gloves, some have bandanna's tied around their faces like old time outlaws. And no one seems to think anything of it. People are hiding in their homes. They are locking themselves in their 'safe' places in order to not catch this virus while news outlets give us information that seems to have more holes in it than swiss cheese. All while they feed the fear and keep telling us to stay at home so we can stay safe.
Safe.
Now there's a novel concept. Here we are, fighting a battle the president has labeled an invisible enemy. We are fighting with masks, gloves, alcohol, and some might wonder if others are fighting with toilet paper given it's scarcity these days. We are told to sanitize our groceries when we bring them home, that our mail might make us sick, and above all to stay safe at home.
Home is, I suppose, supposed to be our magical bubble that keeps the germs at bay and will save the world. If only we can stay at home long enough.
Safe.
But how long is long enough to be safe from a virus that is sweeping the world. Two weeks was supposed to have been our magic number, at least at first. Then it was a month. Now it's six weeks. How does one put a time frame on when a virus might disappear. I ask that, not based off Scripture but based off the ideas our unregenerate leaders and advisers seem to be tossing our direction and using to keep an entire country on near house arrest. From a medical or scientific standpoint...how long is long enough. When might the virus just turn us lose and we can all emerge from our homes like some kind of end of the world Hollywood blockbuster movie scene, where people slowly come out, looking around in an awed daze, as they realize the danger is over. When do we reach that point. When does life go back to normal.
Safe.
There is no more normal because we are hiding from this invisible enemy to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Please don't get me wrong, I understand that their is a vulnerable population that has a much higher rate of death than the general population. I understand that the elderly and the ill are at a greater risk. I don't discount that. Quite the contrary, this hidden enemy may have played a role in my Mother's death. That thought stays with me. I will never know the answers to the questions that plague me as to whether or not this virus that we now know is with us might have made my mother sick prior to her sudden and unexpected death. I also live each day knowing that at least one of my children is in the high risk category. I may have lost much as a part of this virus and I cannot stand the thought that I could lose more. Far from taking this lightly, I am watching and waiting. Enjoying every moment the Lord gives me with those I love.
Safe.
Each moment that passes is one we cannot get back. For now, we wait. Safe at home. Safe with each other. Safe in the days the Lord has allotted to us because it's all we can do. We wait. We watch. We love each other.
Safe.
And yet...how safe are we when this virus that the world is so afraid of is a virus that has been unleashed by a God that is so powerful that He literally spoke the world into existence. What good does it do us to hide away from a virus that is, according to the information we are being given, only slightly worse than a bad flu, when it is God's hand that is controlling every one of those germs that people fear so much.
Was Noah saved because He hid in the ark or was he, and His family, saved because of his faith in God. Noah did go inside and hide away from the storm. His door was closed, by the hand of God, and he hid inside that boat while the worst storms the world has ever seen raged outside.
Did Moses survive that river because His mother made a basket that was as safe as a boat and was so balanced that no wave or ripple of the water could overturn it. Did he survive and get rescued because his mother kept him safe in that basket, after all, who in their right mind would ever put a baby in a basket, set it afloat in a body of water and expect it to survive. Moses was placed inside the basket, safely secured away from the horror of the murdering of the babies that was taking place, and safely set a sail on the water so that he might not become a statistic, if they had such a thing back then. He was safe. Hidden away from all the horrors.
Noah, Moses, and many others in Bible 'stories' were spared the ravages of plagues, murder, famine, fire...they were safe but how did that safety come about. Did they stay safe at their own attempts. Or was it God's hand that saved them.
Even Christ separated himself, he went into the garden of Gethsemane and secluded himself where he prayed that God would 'take this cup from me if it be Thy will'.
Thy will.
Where does our safety come from. From doctors and government leaders that tell us we are fighting a virus that showed up in our country in December despite the fact that a good number of American's talk about how sick they were in November. Do we stay safe because we take these people's advice and hide away in our homes seeking shelter from an invisible enemy that is sweeping the world. Is this where safety comes from.
Thy will.
Can we be safe at our own hands. Can we protect our families from a virus we can't even see. Does requiring police officers to text their boss a picture of a thermometer with their temperature on it before coming to work protect us when the leading doctors are saying that at least 50% of people that get the virus carry it and show no symptoms. Does locking down a state and requiring people from another state to quarantine for two weeks do any good when they allow worker in certain fields to go to and from without any quarantine at all.
If a person stays home and never goes out, has everything delivered in, are they safe. Does wearing a mask in town guarantee our safety.
Safe. Safe. Safe. Hidden away in our homes. Locked inside. Kept on house arrest, our businesses all but closed down, a good number of jobs gone, some of them forever, so we can be safe.
But...Safe is coming as an illusion. We can never be safe from God. America has laughed in the face of God. Flaunted sin after sin before Him. Cried, 'Don't judge me', far and wide. They use terms like, 'don't judge', before they toss out everything from, 'I have a heater under my desk' (someone told me that), to 'I'm a homosexual' or 'I've had six abortions' or...whatever. Just so long as 'don't judge' is remembered far and wide, maybe especially by God.
All these sins and more have been wallowed in like the most gluttoneous of pigs in the biggest of mud puddles. And now that there's a new virus, a plague, sweeping the world, these same people are hiding in their homes, closed up in their safe places believing that they can protect themselves and their loved ones from this germ. Even the professing Christians seem to be missing the point on what this virus, this covid-19, this coronavirus, is. They blame it on a virus, which it is, but do not say...'this is God's wrath on a sinful world'. They don't say, 'we, even the so-called Christians, have all but spit in the face of God, daring Him to show His hand, while they say things like, 'come as you are', and 'hate the sin, love the sinner', and they endorse homosexuality, idolotry, and covetousness, to say nothing of divorce and encouraging men to sell Christ to earn more than a fair wage while they do not work six days a week as Paul says they should. So we are facing a 'pandemic' and no one mentions that it's a judgment from God. No one says that we are under God's wrath.
I think of Soddom and Gomorah. No one was safe hiding in their homes. God's wrath was upon them and their was no hiding, no staying safe. And now we have a world, watching and waiting with bated breath, hiding in their homes and behind masks, safe from a virus that is being controlled by God. The same God they defy even in their safe places.
How safe can one be from the very God that gives them breath.
How safe can we be when it is God's hand that spreads the virus. His hand that uses the virus to take a life. His hand that restrains a virus in people that get it but have no symptoms.
How safe are we in our safe places when it is the Lord who decides whether or not our safe place will burn down tonight or topple in a tornado.
How safe are we from God's wrath now that He has decided to unleash part of it on the world.
We are safe in our safe places...so long as the Lord uses those safe places to keep us safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment