Lessons During Lockdown

Like many of you, my mobility has been greatly restricted the past 6 weeks.  I keep in cell phone contact with some of our church leaders.  Martha and Philip are still here.    We can go out only to buy groceries.  It’s hard to be in lockdown.  To compensate, I have aimed to have quality study time each day, which has been very rewarding.

My personal verse for the month has been Isaiah 46: 9-11 - “Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other… Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure…’  Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.  I have planned it, surely I will do it.”

The coronavirus certainly didn’t take God by surprise.  It was written in His plan long before the first virus appeared.  Our challenge is to rejoice in God’s sovereignty and trust in His purposes.  I have learned that God usually accomplishes much more through suffering than through prosperity.  He orchestrates both:

Amos 3:6  “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?"

Isaiah 45:7  “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.”

Lamentations 3:38  “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?”

It’s sobering to read in Acts 2:23 that even the horrors of the cross of Jesus was “by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God”.

I recall when Jan and I had our cancers.  We knew God had a purpose in it that was bigger than ourselves.  Our aim was to give God glory in the midst of a circumstance that was not so glorious.  Many were blessed by Jan’s testimony, our faith and joy in the Lord grew, and now Jan is enjoying the fruit of her faithfulness.

Adversity doesn’t fit with most peoples’ concept of a loving God.  However, it is not our comfort that God is after, but a full revelation of who He is: His holiness, wrath, justice, mercy, goodness, and love.  A backdrop of suffering and evil is necessary “in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:23), “that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:7).

For those who have experienced the sweetness of our sovereign Savior, suffering is yet another opportunity for God’s powerful grace to be experienced and His inner peace to be magnified.  As you plod through your coronavirus days, may you experience a renewed appreciation of our Lord’s sovereignty and an added assurance of His presence.  Even in the dark times, God is good, and His purposes will endure forever!