Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven."
We are bound to time under purpose of heaven. Time to be born, to weep and laugh, a time to get wounded and a time to get healed. Time to break down and time for a breakthrough. Time to be destroyed and a time to be renewed and restore our faith in the midst of destruction.
We all have our own dealings while sailing across the sea of life. Some or most journey bring us spiritual warfare. In one moment of our lives everything goes well, a life full of rainbows and dreams. But there is no room for complacency even if life seems to be perfect at times, we need to remain faithful and grateful because in just a snap of finger everything would possibly turn into ashes if God allows to happen.
December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei Province, an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus widely known as COVID 19 was first identified according to news. Since then, a widespread transmission of this disease became global and eventually labelled as pandemic. A pandemic that has a tremendous effect to every nation’s economy, health and individual’s daily routine and emotions. People from different status of life, and different perspective (whether religious group or not) all are locked down and cannot do things as normal as they were before. A pandemic that brought them panic, worries, and people are terrified to be infected by the dreadful virus. Who does not anyway? Even some faithful believers are losing their hope and faith. Reality hurts, but it is true.
As days passed, numbers of infected are increasing tremendously despite of all safety measures and precautions implemented by governments. Also, it brought chaos to mankind and even many Christians. Supported by the verse that can be found in Luke 21:11 “There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven”. Things are bound to happen in the perfect timeframe of God. Since we really don’t know when exactly that time is, people become anxious to many uncertainties. Pain, fear, physical and emotional suffering, uproar and death that caused faith to shatter and quiver.
Why they all happen? Does God allow this to chastise us? These are some few questions that linger to our minds when catastrophe happens. It is because of the deep sense of guilt caused by wickedness and sinful life why we quickly think it is punishment from God. When we accepted God, He did not promise us a bed of roses nor smooth sailing voyage. One must go through a rough patch and must traverse a difficult chapter of sailing. Everytime we sail amid of giant pacific and fly wingless in the massive blue sky, God becomes our Captain and Pilot to our journey. So, why fear?
This global pandemic is smiting us and causing dramatic changes in our lives. It is for us if we will accept the life changing experience that God offers us or the other way around - the world. All these that we have been experiencing; the struggles and sufferings are just a wake-up call to all of us in order to restore our faith in Him. God wants us to take this as an opportunity to come and turn to Him. Hosea 6:1 says, "Come and let us return unto the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us, he hath smitten and he will bind us."
God disciplines us sometimes in a way that we could not imagine. Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord”. This might sound a noble poetry but no greater amount of understanding of man that will resemble the parallelism of God’s powerful wisdom. In this sense of conscious living, these occurrences are merely His way of making us realize that we need Him more than anything else in the world. To restore what is broken, to reseek what is lost, to refocus what is obscured and to realign what is skewed and all these will only happen if we return to God. God says, if we will just humble ourselves pray, and seek His face, turned from wicked ways and turn to Him ( 2 Chronicles 7:14 ), He is faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9), to heal, bind us up and restore us.
Our biggest share to impart is to ignite our faith and let that faith a light to others. Do not let fear and doubts squeeze the fire in our hearts. Our focus must mainly to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Turn your fear into faith for God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and, of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). We need to come and turn to God with all our heart and having faith without wavering. Let your faith depend on Him who is faithful to us. A faith that relies to the One whose love will never fail, and to the One that will never leave nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). Feed our souls with the Word of God. Free ourselves from negativity, pray and humble thyself unto God, and trust in the Lord with all our heart (Proverbs 3:5-6). Walk by faith and not by sight, with the hope to our One True God Christ Jesus, then we will leap forward from this pandemic and declare how great our God is. Always remember that nothing could separate us from the unconditional love of our Gracious God (Romans 8:38-39). Endure till the end, “but he that shall endure into the end, the same shall be saved (Matthew 24:13)”.
All this and more, there is no magic formula to restore faith amid of destruction, to remain in His presence is more than enough no matter what. John 15:5 “Apart from me, you can do nothing”.
