Wednesday, December 29, 2021 – New Years

“Get out of bed, Jerusalem!  Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight.  God’s bright glory has risen for you.

The whole earth is wrapped in darkness, all people sunk in deep darkness, but God rises on you, his sunrise glory breaks over you.” (Isaiah 60: 1 -2, The Message Bible)

                 Seriously, I am just saying…

                If these were Old Testament times, there would probably be some prophetic voice crying in the Covid wilderness proclaiming that we need to change our godless ways (i.e. repent) and return to a life of faith and trust in God alone. This implies that God would use the pandemic as a conduit for a serious message to express God’s displeasure and dismay with humankind. 

               A terrifying example: “Danger ahead! God’s about to ravish the earth and leave it in ruins, rip everything out by the roots  and send everyone scurrying: priests and laypeople alike,  owners and workers alike, celebrities and nobodies alike,  buyers and sellers alike, bankers and beggars alike,  the haves and have-nots alike. The landscape will be a moonscape, totally wasted. And why? Because God says so. He’s issued the orders.” (Isaiah 24: 1 -3, The Message)

                Danger ahead!

                But most of us are far too sophisticated, intelligent, progressive, secular, skeptical, agnostic (even among the devout, if truth be told), doubting, irreligious and liberal to give much credence to such ancient nonsense. Only the extremely religious, dingbat, right wing might give weight to such a theory. Our God, if we have one at all, is more of an indulgent grandfather figure, incapable of doing much harm to his beloved sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.  Besides, good-old-boy Jesus wouldn’t let him anyway…

                Nevertheless, let’s give this some further serious thought and consideration.  I am not suggesting that God has necessarily created the situation we are in but I am wondering whether he is using this pandemic to try and get our attention.

To alert us to his concern about us and for us.

To engage us in a fresh conversation about his love and his desire for us to give him our serious devotion.

To call us back to a renewed relationship and re-habilitated conversion of heart, mind and spirit.

And, therefore, to assure us of a different future then the one we are currently experiencing.

The good thing about most prophetic messages is that they eventually turn into hope, promise, and good news once the bad news is out there for all to hear.

Messages of deliverance, salvation, rescue and victory over that which oppresses us, tries to doom us, threatens to defeat us, and exiles us. And this whole Covid aberration certainly feels like exile to me.

Seriously…

Grab onto God and he can get us through this mess.

Hold onto God and he has a better way into the future.

Demonstrate your full trust in God and he will lead us through the darkness.

As we enter a new year, let us make it our resolution to engage God in this conversation, painfully honest as some of it may be, but also full of new possibilities, fresh insights and an invitation that by doing it God’s Way, we experience the breaking of sunrise glory upon us.

I am just saying… seriously.

 Dale