What else could go wrong?
For weeks I’ve been reluctant even to look at the news. It seems to go from bad to worse.
It’s a good thing Christians aren’t limited to what the media tells us. We have a wider and much deeper perspective.
That perspective tells us that God is at work.
Five years ago, I wrote a passage in Mystery Explained, my shorter book on Revelation, to the effect that sometimes pandemics occur which are worldwide in natures and that these are events powerfully used by God to bring an ultimate good. I reread it the other day while proofreading for a revised edition, and realized with a start that it had actually come to pass.
At one point, Paul faced an extremely difficult time in his life. He felt that a sentence of death had been passed on him.
But out of it he learned a critical lesson, a lesson that enabled him to survive. He learned to see into the unseen. He phrased it in terms we can understand. Using the normal word for physical eyesight, he described how we can see the world around us. But then he used a different word, a word from which we get the words scope, microscope and telescope. He told us we need that kind of vision to see into the world that is unseen by normal vision.
How much we need that vision right now! All we see in front of us is a world terrified of being infected with a virus with no known treatment, a world full of angry young people lashing out at the real and perceived injustices of society, a world in which Christians are facing an unprecedented wave of persecution in the biggest country on earth, a world of war and not peace, a world of fear and not hope, a world of anger and not love.
But God is at work. In truth, this world deserves nothing but obliteration. We have killed hundreds of millions of defenceless babies, we have tolerated racism, we have plundered the environment, we have violated every law God ever gave us. And almost as bad, those complicit in one crime sit hypocritically on thrones of judgment hurling thunderbolts at those guilty of another.
But God is at work. He has lifted for a moment his hand of merciful restraint and given us over to our own devices, the fruit of our own rebellion. He is showing us a glimpse of the far more dreadful punishment that is to come for those who reject him, in the hope that millions will realize there is a better way. That way was made possible when God decided to take the punishment for our sins on the shoulders of his own Son.
In times like this, the worse things get, the more God is at work forming his plans to redeem and to restore.
All over the world, millions who have never been to church are watching services online. Alpha can’t keep up with the demand. Many Christians have actually started to pray again. Even if we don’t know what is coming, we know God has something amazing in store.
In the last days and weeks, I have never felt such pressure from the world outside to shape my behaviour and even my attitudes in certain ways. I will honour what needs to be honoured, but I will choose for my life to be shaped by the pressure of the Holy Spirit, not the loud voices around me.
God doing that very thing in the lives of millions of his people is the best guarantee real change will come in this world
Fear gives birth to fear and anger gives birth to anger, but God by his Spirit gives birth to new life and new hope.
And how much this world needs both.
It will come, and maybe sooner than you think.
CONSIDER PARTNERING WITH DAVID & ELAINE CAMPBELL IN HELPING TO SUSTAIN THEIR ACTIVE MINISTRY.
AWAKENING MINISTRIES // FOUNDATION of FAITH Project
Foundation of Faith Project is strengthening generations in faith and bringing beautiful changes to the communities around them. Through teaching, mentoring and coaching, many are finding out who they are and who they are destined to be. They are bringing more to their world. David Campbell is the key leader in this initiative and you can support him financially directly through Awakening Ministries.
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