Soul-Peace in the age of Coronavirus - Part 1 Faith

I know that God speaks today through people of faith and practice who share what God places on their hearts. I offer these words with the prayer that they will be lifegiving for someone or ones of you…and maybe even for myself and my family.

Until several weeks ago, the words quarantine and Coronavirus, and phrases like shelter-in-place were rarely spoken. But now, the impacts of COVID-19 are getting very close to home for all of us. A local pastor’s wife has been in a medically induced coma as health professionals fight the virus in her body. Friends face the challenges of getting kids home from college or international locations with prohibitions on travel. Income stalls or stops for some, and these friends wonder how they will pay bills. We are surrounded by facts that concern us and by messages that provoke fear and anxiety as different outlets vie for constant attention. Misinformation is spread to prove political points, divorced from reality, raising more questions, and placing more human lives in jeopardy.

As a response from our family to yours, we are going to share a few thoughts. Here’s Part 1 - Faith. If this is lifegiving for you, watch for Parts 2 - Hope and 3 - Peace in the coming days.

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What else is true? Part 1 - Faith

I suggest we are also surrounded by messages of FAITH and HOPE and PEACE. I pray we lean into those messages and stories in these challenging days and weeks or months. They are supports built on foundations that will uphold us when we are weak. They will do so, because that is exactly what they were built for! This does not mean some of the information we hear or read is not legitimately frightening…sure it is. But that doesn’t mean it is the only thing - the only information - to consider. Fear is not the end of the story…true messages beyond Coronavirus are legitimate and necessary to consider right now!

1. FAITH is true!

Faith is a gift that I think unlocks resilience. We need to be able to “just be” so that we can deal with the pressures that rise with the storms that come. Faith allows us to bend and sway with the pressures that come while our feet remain firmly planted in truth. It may be surprising that skyscrapers are built…engineered…for movement. They are drilled down and anchored into bedrock, but they are made to withstand the heavy winds of storms and the shaking from earthquakes by their flexibility, not by being completely rigid. If they remained rigid, the fluctuating pressure of high winds and the sudden shaking of an earthquake would break or shatter them. By their engineering, they transfer that pressure and movement throughout the structure, dissipating its effect and reducing the likelihood of catastrophic collapse. Faith is similar…faith is a way of being. Faith is not some rigid thing prone to fracture or collapse. No, faith is an active transference of the anxiety and fear that hits us, sometimes in what feels like unrelenting waves…and that pressure gets transferred throughout our soul-structure and into the foundational bedrock of God’s abiding no-matter-what love where it dissipates. Faith acknowledges that storms come and fires rage and viruses kill and God loves and mourns and, like us, encourages life to continue. That faith has the structural flexibility to withstand the unrelenting winds and waves.

“I call out to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy mountain.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.” (Psalm 3:4-6)

“Now faith is the substance (or confidence) in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Anchor into God’s promises and His character to weather these storms. And God strengthen our faith as we walk through these days!