For since the world began, no ear has
heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him! Isaiah 64:4
Of course hindsight is a much clearer lens than imagination. Nobody imagined the global greenhouse gases effect of Henry Ford’s model T’s rolling off the assembly lines toward American homes. The emerging possibility of an automobile for every family was the upside…extinction of a species, or even the entire habitation of planet earth…well, that was quite beyond imagination.
We are a full eight months into the
current pandemic. For many of us,
perhaps most of us, busy and making plans with whatever occupies our time, the lion’s
share of whatever BIG is happening in the Covid19 era may
be the inconvenience of having things so complicated. Many of us are simply waiting it out, longing
for the better times of no irritating masks and social distancing to reappear;
we want the masks and death toll keepers to dissipate, eventually disappear, in
favor of what our minds fondly recall as “normal”.
I have been reading a lot, checking the
news cycles, talking with people, and certainly praying much. All of it is permeated by pandemic-speak…what
it means, how much of it is true…how long it will last…and, for the wistful amongst
us, when will it go away and let us get back to our normal
lives. I’m almost afraid to get
transparent about what seems to me the obvious emerging answer to these
troubling, agonizing questions…we’re asking the wrong questions.
Some of the articles I’ve read
(particularly about what the “new normal” means for churches) have pronounced
an inevitability over the fact that the BIG that is
happening now is a change on the order of an ice age; it’s not going away, and
everything is going to be different.
What that means at ground zero for those who choose to believe the pre-2020
conditions of life are going to come back, is the unplanned destination of PPSD
(Post-Pandemic-Traumatic-Syndrome).
So, what is there to do…just forget
everything pre-pandemic and move along in zombie-mode with the rest of the crowd,
taking each day’s new protest as normal?
Not in the least.
Every now and then something comes about
to change everything. Remember the
cross? The movement was going so well;
crowds were getting larger, two sardines and a few crumbs of bread multiplied
to feed thousands, healings, miracles, LAZARUS coming out of the tomb…and then
Judas, Pilate, three nails, on the hill they called the skull. And then the dead silence of Arimathea’s
tomb.
Everything changed. And then, Sunday morning everything changed
again.
And about all that Isaiah said, and Paul
reaffirmed, you can’t know everything God’s up to…get over it…just look
for His hand moving wherever something BIG is happening.
And this is the road we MUST travel.
Many times
God has said to His children, don’t fear, take courage, just get ready
for action, because I’m about to do something new.
And here’s
what you can start to dwell on today: if
you’re stuck waiting and looking for the old normal
to return, you just might miss the new wonderful God’s
handing out. Open your heart; your
redemption is closer now than ever before!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have
a blessed day in God’s light!
Title image: Pixabay.com W Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For an interesting read on changing times see: Don't Expect Churches to Return to 'Normal' after Pandemic -
Baptist News Article
No comments:
Post a Comment