Depending on how informed you choose to be, you have probably seen more line graphs (unless your profession calls for looking at them) about the status of the pandemic in the past few weeks than you have in the past few YEARS! I love line graphs. Like I love vacuuming my apartment. So I guess love isn’t the right word.
Line graphs are great. We live in a world driven by data and statistics, and it is absolutely incredible how we can forecast situations based on the global resource of data available to us. And right now, scientists and statisticians around the world are teaming up to produce as accurately as possible a continuous stream of data (both interpreted and uninterpreted) to the masses. In all, this is a wonderful thing and it will ultimately save lives. But as individuals, and particularly (most of us) individuals who are not infectious disease scientists we have to ask ourselves one question: What is this doing for me?
Other questions that we don’t necessarily have an answer to:
In our attempts to better understand the pandemic, are we setting ourselves up to forget the MAGNITUDE of God. Is the need to fully understand the data concerning the pandemic and spends hours researching an expression of fear? In our attempts to deny the reality of the pandemic, are we still doing the same thing? How many line graphs are too many?
This is a situation that we’ve never faced before and, simply put, it’s complicated. Each of us will respond differently to this situation, and so our encouragement is really to take the time to evaluate how you are responding. It’s so easy to become “inactive” during this season, letting yourself be fed information from anywhere and everywhere, or letting your day be consumed by self-seeking pass-times. Staying “active” might look like limiting your media intake, pausing your deep dive researching, and turning your attention to God in prayer and worship. Those seem kind of backwards, don’t they?
The issue at the root of a self-seeking response is fear. We waste time . . . or we overwork. We stop communicating . . . or we can’t stop talking. We hoard, we lie, we hurt. When we’re afraid, we close ourselves off from God. BUT
“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There
is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,” 1 John 4:16-18
So run to Him. In the midst of your fears, turn to God and remember His love for you displayed through Jesus on the Cross. In that love, all fear is cast away. Someone should make a line graph about that!
Remember to join us this Sunday at 8:30am online for CHURCH AT HOME Vol. 3!
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