By Brooke Holt, Adult Curriculum Specialist

Many people have been asking me what I make of the Coronavirus, what I think the purpose of it is, and what God will do through it. My humble answer is that I have absolutely no idea! There is a reason that God is God and I am not!  

While I do not have any answers, I do believe that we can be asking ourselves how God wants us to live through these days.  I think there is a faithful way to live, one that puts our trust and hope in the Lord, and I think there is a fear-based way to live, one that looks around us and sees panic, doom, and gloom. No matter what your response is, God still sits on his throne. He is sovereign over this virus. Despite the pain, suffering, and loss, I know that God is good. I believe that he will work for his glory and our good through this.  

As a Lenten discipline, I am meditating on a Psalm each week. This week, I am focusing on Psalm 95. There is a phrase that keeps calling me, speaking to me, and challenging me: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work” (verses 7-9). I keep wondering how my reaction to this Coronavirus will either harden my heart or soften my heart to the Lord.  

In Psalm 95:7-9, the Lord speaks of when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. He worked powerfully on behalf of his people and accomplished many miracles so that the people could not only escape Egypt but leave with plunder. The Israelites saw the mighty hand of God as he parted the Red Sea for them to walk through. That sea then crashed upon the Egyptian army that pursued them. God changed bitter water to sweet water in the wilderness of Shur (Exodus 15:25); the Lord provided manna for food in the morning and quail for food at night.  

As the Israelites moved on to camp at Rephidim, they couldn’t find water and became indignant. They grumbled against God and against Moses: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3) Pause here a moment to think about all the miracles the Israelites had witnessed with their very own eyes, to remember how God had provided everything they needed just when they needed it. Instead of asking God to once again provide water, they whined and complained. Can you imagine how frustrating that must have been for Moses, for God? In his mercy, the Lord does provide water. Moses struck the rock at Horeb and water came out to quench their thirst.  

The Israelites were slow to understand and slow to believe. They say it took 40 days to get the Israelites out of Egypt but 40 years to get Egypt out of the Israelites. All those years of bondage certainly took their toll. Likely, the Israelites felt forgotten by the Lord. God never forgets his covenants! God never forgets his people. During the years of slavery, the Lord had a plan for their escape. He knew their course through the wilderness, and he knew the glories of the promised land.  

In Numbers 13, Moses sends the men to spy out the promised land. They go into the land and find it is even more glorious than they could have imagined. The only problem was the people in the land. The report from 10 of the spies was that the people were like giants and there was no way to overcome them. Only Caleb and Joshua brought back the report that the land was glorious, and although the land was occupied, they knew that God would give them the land. Caleb and Joshua remembered God’s faithfulness through their Egyptian escape and their journeys. They believed that the same God who provided water, food, protection, and guidance would allow them to supernaturally defeat the giants.  

Sadly, the Israelites succumbed to the dour report of the 10 spies instead of choosing the faith and hope of Caleb and Joshua. They cried and groaned all night and once again asked why they couldn’t have just died in the land of Egypt or in the wilderness. After all God’s faithfulness, they still did not believe. Their hearts were hard to the Lord.  

The Israelites serve as a warning to us. Though we are quick to criticize them, they represent us. In Psalm 95, we are warned not to harden our hearts. How do hearts become hard to the Lord? The Psalmist says that hearts harden when we hear the voice of God and choose unbelief instead of belief, when we put God to the test, and when we go astray in our hearts. The Lord was certainly worthy of the Israelite’s full-hearted faith. Nevertheless, they chose fear over faith; they chose to complain instead of pray; they chose despair over hope.  

As Christians living in the year 2020, have we seen God’s faithfulness? Have we experienced his gracious provision, his mercy, and his love? If so, how do these experiences shape our response to the Coronavirus? As we see the people of the world around us panicking, retreating, and lamenting, do we join them or do we take a posture of trust in the sovereign Lord? Do we move into complete dependence on him and into continual prayer? I am not saying we won’t have a range of emotions. We are human, and those emotions are normal and even healthy. It is what we do with those emotions that makes all the difference. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). We can choose to dwell in the perfect love of the Father or we can choose to camp out in fear. Love will keep our hearts tender, soft, and dependent on the Lord, while fear will harden our hearts and cause us to seek comfort in idols and the things of this world.  

So, what does faith look like? Solitude, contemplative prayer and meditative Scripture reading are Christian disciplines that have been lost in our day and age. We are constantly busy with our agendas. If it is not work, school, family, or friends then we find ourselves lost in social media. What if we used this extra time in our schedules to get truly still and quiet before the Lord? What if we turned off all our technology for certain hours of the day so that we did not have the constant distractions? What if we read a passage of Scripture, then re-read that passage asking the Lord how he wants to speak to our hearts and lives through his words? What if we sat before the Lord without a major list or agenda and just invited him to speak? What if we spent some time journaling, allowing our thoughts and feelings to be released, knowing that God sees, knows, and cares about each and every one of those thoughts and feelings? 

What does fear look like during this time? Fear can take many shapes and forms. It can look like the person obsessed with the next announcement by the CDC, absorbed by the media, and consumed with all the unknown. It can look like choosing to put our trust in busyness to keep our minds occupied and to keep our hearts hard and unknown, even to us; it is looking to our ways of comforting ourselves – food, alcohol, internet, online shopping, exercise, etc. You know your go-to. We all have them.  

What if God wants to take this time to expose our idols so that we can turn aside from these lesser things, these things that never truly bring comfort and healing, so we can fix our eyes firmly upon him? What if God wants to use this time to search us and know us, to reveal the things in our lives that rob us of true intimacy with him, of living his abundant life so that we can choose life, so that we can choose faith, so that we can choose him? 

Today, let’s make the choice to not harden our hearts. Let’s ask God to soften our hearts. Let’s allow him to work through the trials of this Coronavirus to draw us to the only true hope in him. Let’s trust him to provide what we need, to comfort us in our sorrow and fear, and to lead us through these uncertain times knowing that he is good, that he sees all of it, knows all of it, and will love us in the midst of it.  

“Oh come, let us sing the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Psalm 95:1-3). 

By Christine O'Brien, Hearts Alive General Manager

One particular morning, several weeks ago, I saw Jesus in the sky. Stick with me here-I’m not entirely crazy!

As we were driving to school, we saw birds in the sky. The kids said, “Are those bats?” Another one said, “No, those are ducks!” To which I responded, “Look at the geese! They’re flying in a V-shape.” I said the V-shape is what shows that they are geese. From there, a conversation started about why geese fly in a V formation. Nobody quite knew the answer, so the only solution on this particular Wednesday morning was to ask Siri.

“Siri, why do geese fly in V formations?”

She answered us by sharing that there are two reasons why geese take on these formations while migrating. My thirteen year old was quick to point out his brilliance, as he had stated migration was why they fly in this shape prior to us involving Siri!

Siri said that the first reason was for aerodynamics. It’s much easier for geese to fly in a V-shape, as each goose helps direct the air flow around the geese behind it. This takes the pressure off and allows them to fly easier, more gently, and faster.

The second reason was for protection. It is much safer to be with the group than it is to be flying solo, because predators can’t take on an entire flock.

It was in that moment when God spoke to my heart and said, “I’m not done with you yet. This is for you. I’m getting your attention through a flock of geese!”

It began to resonate deep within my spirit that we each need to be like a goose in that pattern. We need to be in formation with others. We need to be in formation with others so that when we are tired and weary and don’t feel like we can go on anymore, you and I will have others beside us. Others who are Aarons in our lives, ready and willing to assist and carry one another’s burdens. To make the flight feel shorter. Less heavy. Less burdensome. To take that weight and share it with others. It might not change the flight, but it sure would make it easier to feel like we’re not so alone.

The second way we are like that goose is because We need protection. It matters who we are giving a seat to at our table. If I am alone, not protected and flying solo, I might as well have a giant bullseye on my back. If we have people that are surrounding us, that are protecting us, that are building us up, we are much less likely to allow an open spot for the enemy, with his lies and schemes, to attack. I don’t know about you, but I know that if there are open seats all around my table, it’s really easy for the enemy to creep in and start to devour my thought process, my emotions, my senses -- what I see, feel, hear, believe. All of those are areas where, if I’m sitting at a table alone and the enemy takes a seat -- beside, before, below, beneath me -- he could devour me.

How much more difficult is it for somebody to find a seat at a crowded table?

If there are people around our table who are surrounding us with Christ-like relationships, what a different outcome it would be.

There is strength in those numbers. When those geese were in the sky that morning, it took them a little while to get into formation. At first my kids thought that they were bats because they were scattered all around. They were flapping their wings every which way. They looked to be on top of each other. They simply looked to be chaotic.

As those geese got into their formation, their plan of action seemed so much more clear. It was evident that they were organized, they were unified, they were working together. They had a similar shared vision that they were trying to accomplish. Those geese will migrate somewhere together, and they had an end goal in sight.

If our end goal on this earth is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, pointing others to him, we need to be surrounded. We need to be rooted and grounded in Jesus, in the Word, with his Holy Spirit inside of us, sensitive to his nudgings and his leading. You and I also need to be surrounded by other geese who will get in formation with us. Who will occupy space around us, and who will remind each one of us of who we are in Christ and what we are doing, especially when we are prone to wander?

Who are the “geese” around you? Are you flying with the right crew? Is your vision aligned or might it be time to either refocus or reposition yourself? 

If you don’t have them around you, if it feels lonely, if it feels wavy, if it feels hard, try to identify some people who could come alongside you.

As leaders, let’s humble ourselves to say, “You know what, I need you… We’re better together… Let’s do this life together… We can accomplish more together than we ever could apart.”

Will you join me in this spring of a brand-new decade, in either finding “geese,” tightening up your formation, and/or being a “goose” for someone else? We have so much to glean from one another as we stay yielded to Jesus, and consistently remind others to do the same.

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