by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)
Something I did not expect was hearing what two teenage boys had to say about school. One told me he hated school, and the other said that he didn’t care about school. Okay, that I expected. They hated or didn’t care about school… until they no longer had the option of going TO school… the actual place; taking for granted the community that school is; the place for growing up socially. They both spoke up hoping to return to school in the fall, even if it’s different and doesn’t start on time.
These are boys are lonely. I work with young people whose hearts are hurting while isolated. The distance is taking its toll.
The devastation of the virus is not lost on me. I lost a dear friend, my college roommate of three years, to COVID-19. My mother wants to cook dinner for my wife and I for my birthday this weekend (60… yikes). Mom is 81. I was just with her on Mother’s Day. But since then, I have been knowingly exposed to the virus having talked with a co-worker inside of six feet, as she told me she was freezing. Of course, she was running a fever that hadn’t started until after she began her work day with a normal temperature. She tested positive and is recovering. I am now registered with my county as an exposure risk. My mother told me she has peace about it my wife and I coming over. I told her that I don’t. So, I had to decline for now. I will not take that risk.
But we need to figure something out so that people can get their lives back before giving into tragic temptations to escape their suffering. You might say, well, that is their choice. But people experiencing what they believe to be immeasurable suffering may not feel they have a better choice. Mental health and addiction studies will be coming in the months to come that will reveal alarming facts related to the other deadly affects of the virus.
Either way, there is risk, probably beyond our scope. There needs to be incredible wisdom put into the coming response and strategy to what is a life and death problem on so many fronts. We need to pray for our leaders in federal, state, and local governments as well as the scientific community; that they have the wisdom going forward navigating the way through all of the risk. And we need to pray that we and everyone around us will be responsible as we learn to live through this challenge.
Is survival the only reward? Or, do we want better than that?
Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you’re again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don’t mean that your help didn’t mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles. Philippians 4:4-14 (MSG)
