God's Promises in the Midst of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Part 2

Photo by Jordan Whitt


Last week, I decided that I needed to let myself actually rest and treat this Holy Week as a genuine break. I intentionally shifted my goals from productivity to just letting myself be. And, it has been helpful in calming some anxieties and in getting out of a routine to do some new things. From the list in my last post, I have made soft pretzels as my offering in the millennial baking trend and have lamented that I don’t know what I’m doing with this sourdough starter. I have changed the sheets on the bed and given my house a decent cleaning which made me feel somewhat accomplished. I have been coloring and watching Community. I finished a book and listened to some podcasts and was brainstorming an outdoor blanket fort as I was falling asleep last night. I have been messaging with people I haven’t talked to in years, and I’ve managed to take the occasional nap. And, overall, I would say letting myself have a break this past week was perfect timing because it turns out that my threshold for this lockdown life even with my deep introverted tendencies is a little after three weeks. It took three weeks for me to reach a level of discomfort and restlessness and annoyance with all. of. the. things. Part of that has been because it has been as hot as Hades the last couple of weeks with almost no respite. Meanwhile, my social distanced neighbors have a pool set up that they play in everyday while I dejectedly look at our pila (uncovered cistern) to decide if I’m desperate enough to submerge my sweaty body in the water we wash our dishes with. So far, I have refrained. The air is full of smoke because some questionable humans, as they do, have set fires during this dry season causing large forest fires that are filling the sky with haze. This has resulted in a cough that is making me paranoid I have the ‘rona when I truly do not as my temperature taking would indicate. As you can tell, I have slipped into some self-pity and whining. This is about the time when my dad in my childhood would have stared blankly at me and said, “I will listen to you when you’re ready to stop using that whiny voice. I can’t stand the whininess. Talk like a normal person.” And, he would be right.

I am glad that I also have a gentle Heavenly Father who is always willing to listen while simultaneously nudging me to get over myself. He doesn’t just pull the “other people have it worse” card right out of the gate either because, let me tell you, that takes me from 0 to 100 on the rage meter like nobody’s business (because it is so dismissive). He is an expert in living in the paradoxes, and He gives me the space where I can be heartbroken about the people in Honduras who literally haven’t had food for a week and also pouty because I wish the restaurants were open to order takeout. He meets with me and sits with me in my selfishness and lets me get it out of my system. He gives me a knowing nod and an “I get it, babe” which makes me feel seen enough to self-correct and keep from going into full-blown Israelites-complaining-about-manna-in-the-wilderness mode. This is why our first promise from God for this part two post is that God cares about you and all of your frustrations and anxieties:

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. – 1 Peter 5:7

You will notice that there is no classification system for worries and cares. You can give Him your tears as you watch a video of a nurse from New York City with bruises on her face from her PPE mask. You can also give Him your tears when your kids are driving you up the wall and all you want to do is lock yourself in the bathroom and play Candy Crush. You can lament for the people who have lost their jobs and are struggling to have food to eat, and you can lament that you’re running out of toilet paper, and the stores near you have no stock. God can meet you in the midst of worries for loved ones and acquaintances who are on ventilators and are battling for their lives, and He can meet you in the middle of your online banking as you’re itching for that stimulus check to provide some relief. He is here for all of it. He cares without judgment because He is personal and knows our frailty as humans. His promise is that He cares about each and every anxiety because you are important to Him. He may have to give us a reality check of who He is and how we can trust Him, but He doesn’t do so in dismissive ways. He genuinely cares and calls us higher.

In the same way, God does not get tired of hearing the same prayers or about the same issues or just from the same person over and over. In Luke 18:1-8, we can read about a persistent widow whose nonstop prevailing eventually brought her justice. Jesus says:

So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?

He promises not only that He does care but that there is no penalty for being persistent in sharing those cares. In fact, He sees our persistence as a sign of our faith and our confidence in His goodness. It’s an opportunity to partner with His heart. This is why persistent prayer has almost always been a factor that leads up to a revival. People understood His heart and persisted in praying for the desires of His heart. If we’re wise, we will know that, if and when He says no, that it’s for a reason and won’t try to insist on what we want as better than what He wants. But even if we have hearts of stubbornness, He still cares.

In whatever condition we find ourselves, He wants to be present with us as it says in James 4:8a:

Come near to God and he will come near to you.

He mourns with us as we mourn our losses. He holds our hands when we’re realizing how there will be no erasing this event from our collective consciousness—I find myself hyper aware of invading thoughts like “we couldn’t do that now” when I see a video of a concert or wondering what other changes in thinking are going to stick beyond how long I wash my hands. I can offer all of those thoughts up to Him, and He gets it. We don’t have to put on a spiritual face when we aren’t feeling particularly spiritual. We can say half-hearted prayers like, “God I know I should be caring about those suffering in other countries, but today it’s just a lot.” The point is simply to include Him and acknowledge Him exactly where we are with how we’re feeling.

In exchange for our choosing to be with Him, He promises peace as it says in Philippians 4:5b-7:

The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Have you ever noticed that when you hang out with a calm person that it makes you calm down eventually? Back in the day, when I was a Resident Assistant, we were specifically taught not to emotionally escalate situations whenever we had to write up a resident for breaking a rule aka if someone is yelling in your face, you don’t yell back. You don’t use sarcasm or a nasty tone of voice. You don’t threaten. You just calmly do your job, and when the other person finds they don’t have anyone to engage with in anger, they will usually chill out. My husband, on a good day, has found a great way of disarming me when I am bothered and ranting. He will look at me calmly and sweetly and say (in English), “My wife is pretty.” While I will usually respond with an eye roll, it always catches me off guard and leads to me taking a deep breath or laughing instead of breathlessly following the thread of anger adrenaline. God Himself is peace. When we choose to hang out with Him, we are also choosing to be with a person who will naturally de-escalate our anxieties just by close proximity. We can yell and be angry in His presence. We can frantically wring our hands. But, if we spend enough time with Him, eventually, we may end up curled up beside Him, having evacuated all of our problematic emotions (for the moment), as He rubs our backs and says, “Are you done now? Is there anything left you need to get off of your chest? Are we good? You gonna be okay?”

While we may have our mental breakdowns, life still goes on, doesn’t it? We still have to work from home. We still have to eat which means cooking sooner or later (cereal and potato chips eventually do run out). We still have little people looking to us to be an example of stability in the midst of chaos. We still have spouses who need hugs. We still have bills to pay. We still have a pet that needs fed. That toilet won’t clean itself. Those groceries won’t buy themselves. And the people around us in need aren’t just going to go away. So, once we’ve let it all out and have found the strength in our Heavenly Father to be okay, how do we keep going? Here’s what The Message Bible says in Isaiah 26:3:

People with their minds set on you,
you keep completely whole,
Steady on their feet,
because they keep at it and don’t quit.

This doesn’t mean that they keep at all of the tasks and needs and power through with numbness. This means that they keep at putting their minds on Christ as often as need be. They keep renewing their acknowledgement of their dependency on God. They keep putting their eyes on who He is even if they have to mope about their circumstances first to get it out of their systems. And once they have the mind of Christ, the mind fixated and insisting on His goodness, it’s a lot easier to exit the bubble of selfishness. It’s a lot easier to find the strength to seek out the needs of others in order to be a blessing. He is our refuge and our fuel. He invites us into the secret place. He hears us out and heals our wounds. Then He invites us to get back out there to be His hands and feet as it says in Matthew 28:18-20:

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

He is with you when you’re smiling at the grocery store workers and thanking them for their service. He is with you when you’re holding a dying patient’s hand and wondering if He will be your shield in ways your protective gear cannot. He is with you when you’re explaining that math concept to your fourth grader for a third time. He is with you as you send a message to your elderly neighbor to make sure she’s okay. He is with you when you’ve unknowingly been exposed to someone who has tested positive. He is with you as you decide what bills are necessary to pay and which ones will have to be late. He is with you as you cry out for yourself and others.

To recap, here are the promises of God for you today exactly where you are, with exactly what you need and what you’re feeling:

1) He cares for us enough to be willing to listen to our issues—big or small, deeply compassionate or petty.

2) He doesn’t get tired of hearing us crying out to Him constantly.

3) He will meet us right where we are. Today might be your spiritual high point where you are praying for the nations. Tomorrow you might be struggling not to cuss your husband for forgetting to flush the toilet or for putting an empty carton of juice back into the refrigerator. Whatever state you find yourself in, you’re His kid, so He wants find you there.

4) If we choose to bring all of our junk to Him, we will receive peace in return.

5) He will honor your efforts to maintain your dependency on Him in the midst of troubles by giving you the steadiness of peace to keep going.

6) He will be with you through it all.