These last couple of weeks have been a bit unsettling. It’s times like these that really test your faith. The only events I can compare it to are 9/11 and an impending Cat5 hurricane forecast. I’ve seen desparate people do crazy things, and that scares me. There’s no shortage of news or opinions from everyone. Politicians, medical professionals, celebrities, scientists, athletes, and You Tubers give their thoughts, mostly without knowledge. I’ve read the gamut, from this is just a slightly less common fear-mongering flu strain (like H1N1 or Bird Flu or Swine flu, etc) to it’s the end of mankind and rapture. In my opinion, Covid19 seems to be the first national crisis where everyone had access to instant news and social media content. I’m old enough to remember getting news only from newspapers and 5pm news programs. If you were lost, you pulled into a gas station to ask for directions.
If you were late for an appointment, you stopped at a pay phone and made a call. Everything is instantaneous now, We can be influenced very quickly to panic about our finances, careers, health, and protecting our families. Me included. Despite my daily prayers to God that he give me wisdom and discernment in all areas of my life, I continue to make horrible decisions. I transferred my idle 401K INTO the market the day stock prices tumbled to a record loss and has continued the freefall. I’m sure many like me have lost a third or more of their retirement/investment portfolio just in the last 14 days so far. The career choices I’ve made have not been right and preparing my taxes for Sean this year was very sobering. We had a garage sales a couple of months ago and I SOLD a giant box of surgical masks I had sitting around for years for $2. Last week I looked into refinancing my home, since interest rates went down. The guy called me Friday and said I mis-timed my request and they’re overwhelmingly busy, all the rates went back up.
All in all, I’m probably doing better than most. no one in my immediate or church family has gotten seriously ill yet. McDonald’s drive-thrus are still open and I can afford $3 for two McDoubles. For the moment I have a job, though that looks bleak going forward. The house still has electricity and AC. I’m watching a church service online even with social distancing recommendations. We haven’t run out of toilet paper yet.
Chase shared from Exodus that Pharoah was considered a king and a God by the Egyptian nation. The decree to kill every male baby born to an Israelite family was shocking and terrifying. Moses’ fate was set, yet God intervened. His name means “drawn out”, like he was, out of the Nile River. That body of water was a death sentence to anyone. Fast-moving and filled with all kind of dangerous creatures. Like Moses, we’re all in a terrifying and impossible situation. Somehow Moses was rescued and raised by Pharoah’s own family, and we have that same opportunity to be “drawn out” of this dangerous and seemingly hopeless situation.
I’m sure we’ll look back on this, like we do with H1N1, or 9/11, or Hurricane Wilma and it will be another vague memory of a chapter in our lives until the next crisis arrives. For now though, right this minute, the uncertainty paralyzes most or drives some to do insane things. Let’s try and be examples of faith that God can perform miracles and do immeasurably more than we hope or imagine.