UNDENIABLY TRUE

Approx Reading Time: 4 Minutes

This year has been undeniably difficult for everyone. It seems like it was just yesterday when the minister announced that all schools would be closing in an effort to slow the spread of the novel Corona Virus. Within a few hours everyone was speaking of the possibility of the ending of the world, albeit jokingly. And it did in many ways feel like the world was ending. I remember sitting up all night thinking about what the end of the world would mean for me. Sadly, my thoughts about that were not happy ones. I am not ready for the world to end, truth be told.

Day after day announcements were made of how many new positive cases of the virus had been recorded. Everyone anticipated a fall in the numbers and whenever the numbers increased, panic was written on our hearts. Then all of the sudden, a movie released in 2011, Contagion, regained popularity. TEdTalks by Bill Gates recorded in 2017 resurfaced. All sorts of conspiracy theories were espoused. We searched for answers about when all of what was happening would end but none were found. And in the end, we settled for one thing; that the only thing we could all be sure of was that there was nothing we could be sure of. With time, it started to feel like a bad song was stuck on repeat.

I am as guilty as everyone else for looking for answers in the wrong places. In retrospect, I am ashamed of myself. It is now clear that when I am blindsided by the unexpected, I find I have no footing. But I am a Christian. The first place I should have gone looking for answers was to the bible.

God created the universe and everything that is in it. He sits on the throne and as ruler of it all, nothing goes by without His permission. He is all knowing. Nothing takes Him by surprise; to be surprised you have to be uncertain of what’s coming. Nothing is outside of His control, even the very things that write fear on our hearts. And this is the thing I should have been most sure of at the time. 

God has seen me through all the years of my life and He was not about to stop because of a virus. Whatever I go through, He allows, for my good. And knowing this should give me more peace than conspiracy theories, TedTalks and a movie ever should. I must rest on who God is and not on what man can control. Losing what I hold most dear to on earth must cause me to value God’s embrace even more. I hope I can remember this the next time something threatens to or does shut my world down. 

I am also guilty of thinking the world would end because of this virus. But even if the world is not ending after you read this, our worlds will end one day. This virus has shown me how quickly that could happen. 

This made me think of the relationships in my life; the broken ones and the ones that are whole. I have relationships that need to be fixed through sincerity, apologies and forgiveness. The ones that are whole need me to be reassuring and appreciative. And so I want to take the time I have to make better relationships with the people God has blessed me with.  

Something else that worried me, probably the most, was the thought that maybe I had not made my calling and election sure and that if the world did end I was heading straight to the fire. I usually refuse to think about this but it’s true. Think about your life in the past three months and tell me you’re going to heaven if your world ends after you read this. Even you are not sure. We quickly brush the topic aside, refusing to think about it, because our conscious is not clear. But we know that it is appointed for man to die once and after that face judgment, whether or not we think about it. 

I do not need to spend time in jail for me to end up in hell; I only need to simply and innocently carry on believing that eternity is the business of tomorrow. But to live, I must believe that I am a sinner who can’t save himself. I must believe and have faith in Jesus who died for my redemption. And I must, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the flesh. The will of Christ must be the center of my obedience and His glory what I live for. 

This is what I have been thinking about the most these past few months. 

Peace. 

I’ll see you in July.