Tag: coronavirus

The Years the Locusts have Eaten

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animal antenna biology close up
Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

Our oldest living grandparents have never seen anything like this. The alcoholics can’t drink it away or numb it. It’s making history and parents imagine what they’ll tell their children or their children’s children in days to come. A new dread has overtaken the land—so unknown that people feel powerless in its wake. The grief for all that’s been lost is so painful it feels like a virgin widow mourning her husband instead of enjoying her wedding night. Our pockets are so empty there is nothing to put in the church’s offering plate. The store shelves and market stands are empty. Our joy feels withered, like fruit on the vine in drought.

Worldwide 21st century pandemic, or the first chapter of Joel? Both.

The Old Testament prophecies of Joel are easy to overlook. It’s a short, 3-chapter book in the minor prophets about a locust plague that decimated the land and its people. It’s very apocalyptic and, honestly, hard to relate to—that is, unless you’ve lived through a global calamity yourself.

Reading Joel in the shadow of international tragedy was a unique experience. The first half chapter summarized above left me wide-eyed with shock. This ancient text came alive now that I shared a similar experience with its original audience. The first chapter goes on to describe religious leaders in open anguish before their people, and fasting and repentance because no one knows why calamity has struck except for our sin. The food sources are dried up. The land and its people and animals all go hungry and are left parched. There’s a fair bit of aimless wandering, widespread suffering, and storehouses and gathering places left empty and in ruins.

All of those experiences sound so familiar. No matter how much bread we bake or research we read, we can’t ignore that we still don’t understand what is happening around our world, nor how to stop it or minimize the damage. Our economies are crashing. Our marketplaces have empty shelves too. Our religious leaders desperately try to point us back to God, but the places of worship lie empty. Here in Uganda I’ve seen the empty market stalls. The land isn’t suffering here, as under a drought, but the livestock are thinner and sicker as limited resources have been given to people instead of land and animals.

Joel closes chapter 1 speaking about fire that has devoured the fields. We joke about our world being on fire. We have seen protests and riots, because the world has slowed down its spin enough for us to step back and notice our oppressive systems. Violent and opportunistic crime is on the rise as people become more desperate with hunger and poverty. People starve in slums and refugee camps. Treatable diseases are overlooked and untreated more than ever as our hospitals fill with pandemic victims. Global mental health is in crisis. Dictatorial governments have seized even more power. Marginalized people who already lived on the edge struggle for plain survival. Our world IS on fire.

A theme from the first chapter of Joel rings true for us too: large-scale disaster overlooks nothing and no one. The land in Joel’s day was ravaged by drought, famine, and locusts. But it wasn’t just the food that was affected—young and old, wealthy and poor, people and animals, land and water—all suffered. Even though our pandemic has been a global health disaster, it has hit our economies, governments, communities, and every other sphere of society, with crippling force. Every sector has taken a beating. All the destruction and brokenness has left our literal and metaphorical fields dried, shriveled, and unprotected: just waiting for fire to blaze through and pile calamity upon calamity. Catastrophe reminds us how little control we actually have.

But chapter 2.

The second chapter of Joel reminds us that the Lord is in complete control. Yes, he sends the locusts. Yes, he is holy and just and must punish sin. But he is also merciful and good.

The chapter opens with a nightmarish horror scene. Alarm bells ring and trumpets sound to announce an invading army, but the army is locusts. They black out the sun and moon and break over the mountaintops like a grisly dawn. The land that was lush like Eden before them is a barren desert waste behind them. They move and sound like an untamed wildfire crackling and leaping, like soldiers whose formation is not broken by obstacles, enemies, or defense walls. They pour over and through everything and the earth quakes beneath them.

These images depict the utter helplessness Joel’s people felt in the face of their plague. Nothing could stop the onslaught, and nothing was spared in its path. The locusts even crept into homes through windows, like thieves in the night, violating any sense of privacy or security the people felt. There was no refuge.

But then comes the great parenthesis of Joel. Between talks of plague, judgment, and devastation, the Lord gives an offering of mercy: “Even now, return to me with all your heart…,” “tear your heart and not your garments.” Why? Why should the people trust to the mercy of a God who has only measured out judgment? Because of the ancient name of God, the name he gave to Moses in the burning bush as he was sent to deliver God’s people from slavery.

Return to the Lord your God

for he is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and abounding in love,

and he relents from sending calamity.

Who knows? He may turn and have pity

And leave behind a blessing…

Joel tells us that this wrathful God shows grace and compassion. His anger is slow, but his love overflows. He can cancel calamity. And if you return to him, he may himself turn and deliver blessing instead of punishment. Joel tells the people to gather, young and old. No one is exempt. Help along the tottering elders. Bring in the nursing babies. Interrupt the honeymooners. Weep openly as a people. Repent of your sin and pray for the Lord to spare his people, not to prevent their shame, but the Lord’s. Beg him to relent so that the world will know the Lord’s character and his unchanging love for his people.

Then, Joel says, the Lord will reply with abundance. Food will once again be plentiful in the land. The people and the whole land and its animals can rejoice. The rain returns. The storehouses and places of harvest are full.

Unlike Joel’s people, we are not under the Old Testament covenant promises. Our plague is not necessarily covenant punishment. But the book’s prophecy is filled with God’s truths nonetheless. We too have faced nightmarish scenarios as Coronavirus has overtaken the land. We feel helpless and desperate. We don’t know how to halt it, or how to stop up the holes in our defenses. Our homes don’t even feel safe after we were locked inside them and our privacy and security there feels violated.

Our situation is not the same, but the Lord’s character IS. He is still gracious and compassionate. He is still merciful. Our lives, too, have been interrupted and changed. But just like Joel promised, ‘normal’ can return and we can live in abundance. Disaster has made us desperate, and in our desperation we have new reason to turn to the Lord.

It is here in narrative that the Lord says something startling: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” What does he mean? How can you repay devastation, lost life, trauma? He quickly answers with a beautiful passage that gives me chills. Peter quotes it at Pentecost.

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth… And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

Wow. Will the Lord repay in material abundance after a calamity? Perhaps. But he promises an even greater repayment for the trauma we have endured. If we repent, if we use this calamitous interruption to dig into our own hearts and submit them to the Lord, he will repay us with his Spirit.

The years the locusts have eaten—the difficult days we have experienced—will be repaid. Many of us have found a deeper relationship with God during this time of confusion and tragedy. Our life is enriched for the time we have spent with the Lord. We can use the interruption and the unquestionable grief and fear to drive us deeper into our need for Him and his constantly present Spirit with us.

Not only that, but this is a time of new pioneering for our churches. As they have closed and services have moved online or into homes, we have sifted our ‘religious practices.’ What church traditions are actually life-giving to us? Which ones prop up unnecessary cultural habits we can do without and still have abundant life with the Spirit of God? We have seen and felt the Spirit moving amongst God’s people as we have worshipped at home or with our own instruments together with our families and small communities. This is a time of refreshing and renewal—a time of God pouring out his Spirit abundantly on his people who seek him and repent of the hidden sins these times have forced us to face.

Yes, the Lord sent the locust plague to Joel’s people, and yes, he sent the Covid plague to us. The third chapter promises judgment on the Lord’s enemies just as the first two chapters promise it for his own people. He abhors the sins of selling people or trading them for goods. He is disgusted when defenseless people are abused and taken advantage of. The Lord prepares for war on his enemies and will scythe down even the most powerful among them like grass in a field. Where wickedness is ripe, the Lord is ready to cut it down.

But that does not mean he is not merciful. God is just and cannot abide sin, but he delights to show grace. When he does, the world stage will know of his unconditional, redeeming love to people who rely on him to save them. Unlike with the locust plague, God promises this time during judgment that he will dwell with his people and be their place of refuge. He is sovereign over the disasters of the world. But he is also sovereign over their outcomes. The Lord delivers us. He fills us with his Spirit. He gives us life abundant after calamity. He offers hope. He repays the years the locusts have eaten.

Root of Bitterness

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baobab.jpg
One day I want to experience a baobab tree. It’s on my bucket list. I want to stare at it in wonder, touch it, and probably hug it. I’ll get lost imagining what ages of the earth it’s lived through, and what movements of mankind it has seen. Yep. Call me a tree-hugger.

The book, “The Little Prince” nurtured my fascination with baobab trees. This short, remarkably deep children’s book is about a boy who lives on his own, tiny planet. Every morning the boy washes and dresses, then tends to his planet. He determines the sprouting roses from the baobab shoots and uproots the dangerous trees. The little prince explains:

A baobab is something you will never, never be able to get rid of if you attend to it too late. It spreads over the entire planet. It bores clear through it with its roots. And if the planet is too small, and the baobabs are too many, they split it in pieces.

That same image of crushing, constricting roots comes to mind when I read in Hebrews 12 about a bitter root that can grow up among the people of God to bring trouble and defilement.

Hebrews 10 gears up with a discussion on perseverance in the face of suffering. It outlines how, because of Christ’s sacrifice and redeeming work on our behalf, we can endure suffering with the body of believers at our side. Together we can stand our ground because we share a faith in the unshakeable Faithful One.

Chapter 11 follows with an incredible tapestry of stories to demonstrate this kind of faith. Believer after believer was considered faithful because they were sure of what they hoped for and certain of things not yet seen. The author says that this kind of faith is necessary to please God. Faith is what draws us to him because it means we believe two things: “that [God] exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” In shorter words, faith is the belief that God exists and that he is good.

These stories demonstrate that faith is strongest when it endures uncertainty and lack of evidence that God does exist or that he is working good when we can’t see it. According to this chapter, faith is being certain of what we do not see (that God exists), and sure of what we hope for (that God is good). The Bible characters in this chapter show with their lives that faith means knowing God’s good plan is often bigger than you can see or understand, but believing it anyway. 

Chapter 12 shifts from describing the faith of believers who went through suffering to a discussion on how the Lord disciplines us through that suffering. “Endure hardship as discipline,” the author says, because “God is treating you as sons.” We are told this discipline will be painful, but that it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

The discipline of a loving parent takes a moment of disobedience, hardship, or suffering, and turns it for their child’s good. True discipline is the gift of a teaching moment, used to build good character out of bad circumstances. God does the same for us because he delights to call us his sons and daughters. Because of this, we can understand any suffering that we endure in faith as discipline for our good.

If we keep in mind the truths that God exists and he is good, that his plan is perfect but bigger than our ability to understand, we weather suffering well. This is what the author means when he or she writes, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” If we miss God’s grace—if faith does not guide us to see our suffering as loving discipline—we grow a root of bitterness instead of the harvest of righteousness the chapter promises.

This shortsightedness springs from a lack of faith in God’s good plans, and it grows in us a crushing root of bitterness that slowly tears us and our fellow believers apart. But as the author has already explained, faith is the perfect antidote for this poisonous root of bitterness. The chapter goes on to hold up Esau as an example of bitterness, because he gave into his appetites and gave away his inheritance for a single bowl of food.

When we focus on our appetites and desires, instant gratification becomes our goal. Like Esau, we want to alleviate temporary suffering with something the world has to offer. If we focus on the heaviness of our suffering instead of the grace God gives to discipline us through it to a better end, we give up our inheritance like Esau. We no longer receive discipline as a son because we have cast aside faith in God’s far-sighted plan in favor of short-lived satisfaction. This vain effort to avoid the suffering God has given us will always leave us unsatisfied. And so grows the root of bitterness in place of what could have been a harvest of righteousness and peace.

In the story of Ruth, we meet a woman who defines herself by her bitterness. After fleeing her country because of a famine, Naomi lives as a refugee in Moab. While there, her sons marry local women, but Naomi can’t catch a break. Before long she has watched not just her husband, but both of her sons die.

Her life is emptiness. She left her homeland when it was empty of food. She was soon emptied of her family members one by one. She decides to try her luck by returning home and tells her daughters-in-law to remain in their land and let her go on alone. When they protest, she tells them her womb is empty because her bed is empty and she could never give them another husband. One daughter-in-law, Ruth, stubbornly remains with Naomi. But when the two reach Naomi’s home, she tells the eager neighbors not to call her by her old name.

“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them, “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

Naomi sees the brokenness and emptiness in her life and blames it on the Lord. She chooses a new name that means ‘bitter’ and gives witness to the whole town that she blames the Lord for her suffering.

But now listen to the story told another way.

The Lord had a sovereign plan for Naomi and her family line. Instead of letting them starve and die in a season of scarcity, the Lord prompts them to leave for greener pastures. While in this foreign land, the Lord grows Naomi’s family with two daughters-in-law, one of whom is very devoted and compassionate. Through continued adversity, Naomi and Ruth’s bond grows so much that when given the opportunity, Ruth decides to leave the only land, people, language, and religion she has ever known to throw in her lot with Naomi.

God prepared a relative to marry Ruth, continue the family line, and care for Naomi as she ages. Even as Naomi proclaims her bitterness at the Lord’s treatment of her, the land around her was ripening for harvest: “So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.”

God showed grace and filled Naomi’s life even as she chose to focus on the emptiness. He filled her home with food and her heart with hope, even as greater fulfillment awaited her. By the end of the story, the Lord has filled Ruth and Naomi’s home with a man, Ruth’s womb with a son, and then Naomi’s lap with a grandchild.

The same bitter root Hebrews mentions grew in Naomi’s heart. Her name means ‘pleasant,’ but she was anything besides pleasant to be around as bitterness took root in her heart. By the end of the story, she has learned faith. She learned to trust the Lord’s goodness in her life so she can set aside her bitterness and have faith in a greater plan she cannot see. Uprooting her bitterness was less about a change in situation (her husband and sons were still dead, and no happy ending for Ruth could change that), and more about a change in perspective. By the end of the story she chose to focus on the Lord’s goodness rather than her misfortune, and it relieved her of her bitterness. She did not miss God’s grace in her suffering.

Yet another Old Testament story illustrates this point. In a stark contrast to his brother Esau—the example of the bitterness Hebrews warns against—Jacob dealt with adverse situations quite differently. In Genesis 32 he found himself preparing for a confrontation with a vengeful brother, and afraid for his life. He sent a caravan of all his worldly possessions and family members on ahead and decided to spend the night alone. But the Lord came to him and they wrestled all night. On top of his emotional anguish, he was in physical pain from a dislocated hip, and exhausted from grappling with an opponent too powerful for him.

Jacob doesn’t give up or complain. He doesn’t focus on his own appetites or desires like hungry Esau did when face with lentil stew. If Jacob had chosen to focus on his own suffering, he would have just given up, especially when the man asked for an end to the tussle at daybreak. Instead, Jacob refuses to let go until the Lord blesses him.

Jacob knew so little about God at this point in his life, but he learned experientially about the Lord’s power, goodness, and grace from this encounter. He refused to give up the conflict until he had been blessed, and so instead of choosing to respond to suffering with bitterness, he responds with endurance until he achieves the goal. The Lord blesses him and gives him a new name, “Israel,” which means ‘struggles with God,’

Like Jacob, like Naomi, like Esau, our lives are all kinds of messy right now. We struggle with depression, with lockdown, with fears or anxieties about Covid-19. Our lives have been disrupted. We’ve been locked inside. We’ve faced separation from friends and family and our church body. Maybe we’ve lost jobs or just moved or our lives have changed so much because of the pandemic we don’t know which way is up or even what ‘normal’ we could return to anymore.

On top of that, we grieve and protest injustice in the States. We face disillusionment and feelings of defeat as we fight an uphill battle against broken systems. We’re heartbroken to face the realities that these broken systems created by sinful humans exist not just in our government but in our communities and churches and workplaces, no matter where we live in the world. We are exhausted. Our bodies feel the physical toll of stress. We struggle to find hope, and maybe faith in the unseen is that much more difficult as we feel surrounded and soaked in suffering.

In the face of these afflictions we have two options.

Like Esau, we can choose to live by our appetites, miss the grace of God, and try to satiate our hunger or pain with a quick fix without thought to the future. But if we seek to satisfy our needs with anything less than eternal, we will always hunger and thirst again. If we choose like Esau to focus exclusively on our immediate suffering, we can only increase our frustration as temporal solutions fail again and again and again. As we watch the world and its offerings fail to satisfy us, we can only become bitter. The root grows in us and constricts our soul, crushes our spirit, and breaks our heart.

Or, like Jacob, we can persevere. The struggle and suffering we experience now has the reward of blessing on the other end, if we persevere. The blessing is becoming the new man Paul talks about in Colossians, with a new name John promises in Revelation. If we choose endurance and faith over bitterness, like Jacob, we can know the face of God more clearly for having grappled in his presence, and we are changed. The difficulties we’ve experienced and will continue to experience are not only uncomfortable and painful. There are very real rewards on the other side of the suffering. Like Jacob, we can ask the Lord for blessing to come out of our struggle, and He has already demonstrated that he can and will honor such requests. God gives the blessing freely, but the price we must pay is endurance. We must endure even with all the fear, pain, suffering, exhaustion, and ignorance of God the struggle reveals in us.

Naomi’s story shows us there is still hope if we have already given in to bitterness. If we realign our perspective and choose to focus on the Lord’s goodness instead of our emptiness, he will fill us with his presence, the greatest gift of all.

Let us with the saints choose faith in the Lord’s goodness over short-sighted bitterness. Our confidence will be rewarded and when we have persevered, we will receive the promise. By God’s grace and our certainty in his faithfulness, we will not be those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who believe and are saved.

Elijah’s Self-Quarantine

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Isolation has been hard these days. It’s easy to play the comparison game as other countries begin lifting their restrictions: easy to feel forgotten and alone, to weep. But the Lord doesn’t leave us there.

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Elijah has one of the greatest spiritual highs of his life. He and the false prophets have a throw-down on top of a mountain, and after they dance and wail and cut themselves for hours waiting for their idol to respond, Elijah calmly steps up to bat. After some smack talk, he repairs God’s altar. He floats the wood and sacrifice in water, and he prays serenely for God to accept the sacrifice and show the people who is the real God in Israel.
And wouldn’t ya know it, fire blasts down from heaven and incinerates not just the offering, but the altar too.
The people turn to God. Elijah takes care of the false prophets. He prays for rain and breaks a drought in the name of the Lord. AND he has the nerve to taunt the king: “better get in out of here before the rain catches up with you.”
Seems like a nice ending to the story. Tie it up with a bow. Except the story doesn’t end there. In spite of the phenomenal faith Elijah demonstrated, he runs and hides when his life is threatened. He sits melodramatically under a tree and asks the Lord to kill him, “for I am no better than my fathers.” He thinks at the end of the day he’s accomplished nothing for and with the Lord.
In his misery, he slept. An angel woke him twice to eat, and then sent him to be alone with God.
The Lord asks Elijah why he is there. He answers with a response he must’ve been turning over and over in his mind, savoring the unfairness of it: I’ve done my duty to you, Lord, but the people always turn away from you and kill your prophets—I’m the only one left and they want my life too!
The Lord doesn’t answer in the way Elijah expected. From the mouth of a cave he watches a powerful wind tear through the mountain, an earthquake shake it to its roots, and a fire singe the stones. But the Lord was not in these displays of power. When Elijah hears a low whisper he knows to cover his face and enter the awesome presence of his God. Again he repeats his complaint, with calculated memorization.
Again the Lord answers perhaps not as Elijah expected. He sends Elijah on with instructions, and at the end he says, “I will leave 7,000 of my people who haven’t bowed their knees or kissed the idols.”

Isolation has been hard these days. No matter how high and strong my faith can feel, the smallest difficulty can bring my spirit crashing down again to self-pity, doubt, and depression. It’s easy to play the comparison game as other countries or even cities begin lifting their restrictions: easy to feel forgotten and alone, to weep melodramatically under a tree. But the Lord doesn’t leave us there.
He sustains us with rest and nourishment. He leads us into his presence. When we complain he reminds us of who he is, and that his still, small voice is always near at hand if we will listen. And as if that weren’t  enough, he often reminds us that we *aren’t* in fact, alone. For Elijah it was 7,000 faithful God-followers. We aren’t as isolated as we think. God has not only preserved and sustained his people, but he has allowed them to flourish in the harshest of circumstances, to bloom under the weight of persecution or trauma or hardship.

Moral of the story? Sometimes you need to sit yourself in timeout, take a nap, and have a snack and a juice box. And when you feel better, go into the Lord’s presence. Stand in awe of his power. Hear his low whisper in your heart. And recognize that your troubles are not unique to you. We have brothers and sisters out there fighting the same fight, struggling with the same discouragement and isolation, wondering just the same if the things they’ve done with and for the Lord have made any difference. But take heart: the Lord has preserved thousands by your side, flourishing under the same adversity.

Alone with Death

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I am by no means the first to compare our Covid quarantine to Noah’s time spent on the ark, but I find it particularly encouraging and insightful. Maybe that’s just because it reminds me that our situation—locked up at home—could be so much worse.

Can you imagine what it was like for Noah? Genesis tells us that after he loaded up all 8 people in his family, at least 2 of every kind of animal, and 14 of quite a few of them, they shut themselves up in the ark. And they waited. For a year and half a month.

For over a year Noah was on that ark. He only saw his family members. He only heard the repetitive noises of snuffling, chewing, flies buzzing, and water lapping against the sides of the boat, maybe rain drumming on the roof or timbers creaking. He only smelled manure, sweat, decaying hay, and musty wood.

But that wasn’t all Noah was alone with. Death must have been heavy on his mind. Alone with his thoughts, how many faces of neighbors and friends did he remember as the floods swept the earth? How did he cope with the smell of rotting flesh coming from outside the ark? Every time he closed his eyes, did he see grisly images like dismembered limbs floating on the flood waters? Were the sounds of shrieks and cries for help burned into his memory as he listened to people scramble for safety outside the ark? Did some of them even try to hang on to the outside of the ark, scraping their nails along its sides or pounding on its wooden beams begging to be let in?

Our isolation differs from Noah’s in many ways, but we too are shut up alone or in close quarters with our families. Our time is also set to the repetitive accompaniment of noises we’ve become all too familiar with. Maybe it’s loud chewing or pencils tapping, a dog door flicking open and shut, or a neighbor’s power tools.

Alone with our thoughts, many of us have also come face to face with death just as Noah did. The news on our phones or televisions bombard us with images of masks and over-capacity hospitals. We read charts that forecast death. We dwell on thoughts of our loved ones at high risk or who have already been exposed to the virus. Their faces are always on our mind. The separation we sit in so uncomfortably stokes our worry for vulnerable neighbors and friends. Maybe we can send or bring them groceries, or maybe our lockdown is so strict we can only call on the phone or fret and pray. But like Noah, we have been alone with death. We have faced its implications and considered our own mortality. Our world has been shaken, and we recognize the fragility of our systems, our way of life, our families, and even our own bodies.

Just like Noah’s must have, our stamina ebbs and flows. Some days we tackle a new hobby or DIY task. And some days we lay in bed perhaps too long or stare too blankly at a wall we’ve become intimately familiar with.

Noah must have dealt with all the sudden mood swings from daring hope for an end of his ordeal, to dashed optimism when the birds returned with nowhere to rest their feet. We feel the same repetitive sharp sting of rising hope and deflated optimism as we watch the news and hope for lightening travel restrictions, or openings of our favorite parks or restaurants. Some days the smallest things break our morale, like a hug we can’t give on someone’s birthday, a baby gift we can’t deliver, or a broken WIFI connection that keeps us from worshipping together with our church families.

An entire year later, Noah stepped out onto firm ground again. Maybe he panicked as he felt the earth wobble under his feet, before he realized the motion only came from his legs, used to bracing against the pitch and roll of a ship. Maybe he looked around with tears in his eyes, rejoicing at the flowers and trees and new life he saw. Or maybe his tears came from stepping out onto a barren, death-soaked landscape, wondering what his new life would look like on this unfamiliar terrain.

Many of us are beginning to see signs. They aren’t the movements of birds like they were for Noah, but instead we see new life as people venture back out. Maybe we see families on a walk, businesses opening back up, news reports of lifting restrictions, lines diving downward on graphs of the disease, pets in the park. As things begin to change and we consider leaving our ark, what awaits us outside? There is renewed life, of course, but many things have changed and may never be the same again.

Noah’s first act upon this new ground was to worship. Amidst all the death, new life, confusion, and trauma, Noah worshipped God and acknowledged him as our Creator, worthy of our praise. The Lord was pleased with Noah’s faith, and he promised never again to destroy the earth and all that is in it. To mark this promise, God set a rainbow in the sky. It was to remind Noah and all his descendants for all of time that never again will such death sweep the earth. We can look up at the rainbow today and remember that after sorrow and trauma comes vibrant color, beauty, and the reminder that despite all we have suffered and seen, the Creator still holds to his word.

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Not long ago I walked across my yard yet again, and a friend called out to look up in the sky. A halo rainbow ringed around the sun, what some might call, ironically enough, a corona rainbow.

 

The Lord is in control even of these uncertain times, and as everything around us changes, he remains the same—steady and unmoving. As we consider what life will be like on the far side of this global pandemic, let us first make time to worship as Noah did, and to remember the kindness of our God and his mercy marked in the colors of the rainbow.

Let us also consider the kind of person we want to be when we step out of quarantine. The story of Noah isn’t the only one in the Bible we can draw wisdom from for these strange days of ours.

Though it seems an unlikely story, Jacob and Rachel can teach us a bit about our isolation too. Jacob fled from his family in fear for his life, and he met with God in a vision along the way. His life was upended, and he didn’t yet know if this God would provide for him and keep him safe. When he finally reached his uncle’s house, he was in a foreign land with family who may not have even spoken his language. The first time he saw Rachel leading the flocks to water to drink, he helped her with the animals before he kissed her and wept in front of everyone. Whatever his motives, Jacob loved her.

He agreed to work seven years for his uncle in order the pay the bride price and marry Rachel. When his uncle tricked him and swapped Rachel for her sister Leah on the wedding night, Jacob agreed to work an additional 7 years for Rachel. He was so deeply in love with her that the story says all those years—working for a scheming uncle, being mistreated, spending blistering day and bitter night outside with livestock—all those years felt like nothing to him. They seemed like only a few days because of his deep love for Rachel.

Our quarantine time won’t last for years like Jacob’s work for his uncle did. But like Jacob led a slower-paced life caring for animals and never straying far from home, many of us have led slower, calmer lives during quarantine. The change of pace has given me more time to worship, to pray, to be in the Word. If I have accomplished nothing else, I hope this sweet time with the Lord has drawn me closer to him. If I do nothing “meaningful” besides spend time in the Lord’s presence, the long days and lack of schedule, the frustrations and cabin fever, all of them will have been worth that prize. What a blessing it would be to end this time so in love with the Lord that we could say it only felt like a few short days to us. What a sweet thing it would be to remember the many days as few, because of the deeper relationship we won by the end of them.

As nice as that sounds though, it’s not easy to put ‘get closer to the Lord’ on our to-do lists, or to block off our schedule for it between lunch and afternoon nap time. So how do we measure our productivity during this time? Through checklists and DIY projects? By the number of new recipes we’ve tried or garden plots we’ve planted? Do we quantify our productivity by counting our minutes on zoom and FaceTime calls? Is it a magic number of trips to the grocery store wrapped in masks and a haze of hand sanitizer? None of those are bad activities. Many of them are fruitful and edifying. But they shouldn’t be our main goal or the way we tick off our days.

So do we go broad and measure our quarantine ‘success’ in vague terms like “faithfulness” and “obedience?” We can quantify that just about as easily as we can count the number of times we’ve fantasized about having a prison break to get out of the house, or how often we’ve imagining what it must be like not to have to cook for our families all day every day.

It’s fair to say each of our quarantine times will look different. And that’s okay! Faithfulness and obedience should be our priorities, but we must prayerfully seek the Lord. He will lay tasks on our heart to occupy our time and serve him under these unusual circumstances. Paul wrote letters from jail to his mentees and churches he’d planted. Noah just kept alive his family and an entire zoo. Joseph counted the days in prison and tried to remember the Lord was with him even when he’d been forgotten by everyone else. John had psychedelic visions about the end of days from his exile (doesn’t THAT feel a little too real). Each had a different purpose through their time of forced stillness, just as we will.

But perhaps our pattern should come from Jesus. When he chose to spend 40 days in the wilderness, he didn’t keep many records of what he did with his time. We don’t know much about it besides how he finished. He was full of God’s word. He had it memorized and cherished deep in his heart. He was deeply immersed in the presence of the Father. He’d spent so much time in prayer that he knew the Father’s mind and his purposes. And he knew his vulnerabilities. He knew the temptations he would face, and he knew how to respond to them. Jesus came out of his time in the wilderness prayed up and prepared for full time ministry.

How have you spent your “wilderness” time? Are you more full of God’s word than when you started? Have you spent so much time with the Father that you know him more deeply and fully? Have your eyes been opened to your own sin, and do you know your vulnerabilities and habitual temptations more honestly for having stared them in the face?

As we consider our lives after quarantine, as we prepare to leave our homes and return to work if we can, we must ask ourselves simple questions: Am I closer to the Lord than when I began? Have I spent more time in prayer than I would have otherwise? Do I know more of God’s word than I did before? Have I noticed God’s work in my life and thanked him for it? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no,’ you don’t have to be ashamed. Just take small steps to pray more often, or to set aside time to read your Bible. Simple as that.

By the end of this, no matter how much sourdough or banana bread we’ve made, do we recognize what truly sustains us? Can we say with Jesus that “man cannot live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God?”

Can we say we have learned, like Martha with her to-do list, not to be “worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, [to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen] and it will not be taken away from her.”

Can we respond like Noah and offer a sacrifice of praise as we remember the Lord’s promise never to destroy the earth again?

Can we say of our times, with Joseph, “you meant evil against me but God meant it for good?”

Can we say as Jacob said about Rachel, that the years seem to us but a few days because of our love for the Lord?

Can we say like Paul, after renewing old relationships, “I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers” or “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for you, I always pray with joy…”?

And finally can we say we have redeemed the time? Are we ready to respond, like John, “come, Lord Jesus”?

Wagon Wheel

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I have a wagon wheel tattooed on my leg. It’s a pretty permanent reminder of impermanence. I like to take pictures of it whenever I travel somewhere new, to keep a chronicle of all the places I’ve ‘parked my wagon wheels.’ But its meaning is so much deeper than that.

A few years ago I lived and worked with the Roma people in Bulgaria. Known and stereotyped for their nomadic, ‘caravan’ lifestyle, this community taught me a lot about transience. I learned what it is to make a home wherever you are, to not depend so much on a place and its things as on your people. I experienced life embraced by a ‘clan’ and accepted as family even though the difference in my culture and skin tone were as obvious as night and day. I felt all the hard goodbyes without a promised ‘see you next time,’ and all the joyful reunions and relationships that picked up right where they left off, no matter how much time had elapsed.

My ‘gypsy’ years taught me a lot about expat life. I live in a country that doesn’t match my passport, so I’m an expatriate, and I experience all the joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs attendant to this special lifestyle.

Being an expat means I know things can turn on a dime. Life can change drastically in a matter of hours or days, and you have to roll with the punches. It means I say a lot of goodbyes. It means I have built lots of rich relationships. It means I have friends in lots of different corners of the world. It means sometimes the people closest to my heart actually live the farthest away from me. It means having a go-bag in my closet. It means trying to monitor a sometimes overwhelmingly foreign culture for a few signs of ‘different’ that mean something isn’t right. It means being misunderstood and misunderstanding. It means stuttering along in the language of a friend. It sometimes means being utterly, nakedly, vulnerable and dependent upon the kindness of strangers and new friends. It means I build family fast and bond deeply but sometimes I hate myself for it because goodbyes are awful. It means opening my home to strangers because I know what it means to be welcomed in as one myself. It means a rollercoaster of emotions and changes. It makes for a wild ride.

This worldwide pandemic going on right now has really made the impermanence of expat life stand out harshly. In the past week alone I’ve felt the border crossings lock tight shut around me. I’ve helped friends, neighbors, coworkers pack to leave the country at the drop of a hat. After much anguish and many changed plans, they got out of the country on one of the last possible flights. I’ve stocked up my house in case social upheaval keeps me indoors. Unnatural crowd sizes made my skin prickle. I’ve fielded texts and calls from friends and acquaintances leaving that I didn’t even get to say goodbye to. I’ve kept a wary eye on emails from the embassy. I’ve played ridiculous games in the market shopping with friends to create some sense of lightness and normalcy. I’ve munched on a mendazi in town while counting heads to make sure I was spatially aware of my people… just in case. I’ve cried hard and laughed hard. I’ve stress baked until it seems like every surface in my house is dusted with flour. I’ve belted out my emotions singing along with “I’m just too good at goodbyes” and “all by myself” and “big wheel keep on turnin'” along with plenty of hymns and worship music as well.

This expat life can be an extra source of stress at times when everywhere in the world has more than enough stress to go around. But the flip side of that coin is that this life has taught me and better prepared me for such a time as this.

Coronavirus didn’t do much to remind me of the impermanence of life and home and relationships. I carry that thought always at the back of my mind and tattooed on my leg. I didn’t need a worldwide pandemic to firmly plant in my heart the truth that our home in this world is never promised, but that we deeply long for a permanent one with our Creator. In times of trouble my mind and heart already ask with Moses, “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” My life carries a base level of urgency already because I know not to take the days for granted and to make the most of relationships and opportunities here and now. As volatile as life is right now, and as much as my whole world changes sometimes by the hour, I have the immovable hope and assurance that my real home doesn’t change. My heavenly home waits for me just the same, and the parts of my life given to build up that kingdom will not go to waste—no matter what happens in the world around me.

Another huge comfort is knowing that God is not surprised by times such as these. No matter where you are trapped or stranded or locked down, God is there with you. When God appeared to Ezekiel and the Hebrew exiles, he chose to show himself as a wheel. Wherever we may be, and however far from home and family it feels, God reminds us that he is an ever-present, traveling God. He sees us. He knows us. And without moving himself, he is with us wherever we go. He was there before us and he’ll be there behind us. And that is a great comfort to this expat heart.

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.

When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved; and when the living creatures rose from the ground, the wheels also rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, and the wheels would rise along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When the creatures moved, they also moved; when the creatures stood still, they also stood still; and when the creatures rose from the ground, the wheels rose along with them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

The Panic of Pandemic and the Peace that Passes all Understanding

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The world is out of control right now. Thousands of deaths, uncounted infections, countries closing borders, travel bans, quarantine, economic downturn, runs on grocery stores. Some of the world’s most treasured cities look like ghost towns. “Coronavirus refugee” has entered our vocabulary as people caught traveling can’t return home, or those who have the means flee their homes willingly. Schools and religious institutions shut their doors or find creative ways to meet.

For the first time in living memory, our world faces a truly global pandemic.

It’s interesting to consider what “plague” has looked like in different eras of history. All of the sudden our minds are thrown back to the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and other diseases without name or medical diagnosis that have shaken our civilizations. We remember stories of Christians tending the sick at risk of their own health. We call up dark images like the plague doctors in their beaked masks and compare them to the yellow hazmat suits and breathing masks of our modern imagination. We consider the suspicion neighbors and friends must have harbored toward one another as soon as a black cross was spotted on someone’s door, and we compare it to the sideways glances we see when someone coughs too loudly.

These human experiences are not unique to our generation and Coronavirus. Plague, pestilence, pandemics… they always conjure up panic and suspicion like some sort of black magic. They make us suspect even the air we breathed freely only the day before.

Pandemics pull back the curtain and expose humanity for what we really are, and what we find there can be both vile and hopeful—at once uplifting and depressing. We see the ugly faces of poverty and brokenness and all the harm they cause in our communities. But we also see the good neighbors who bring groceries to vulnerable community members. We see panic and greed at their worst, but we also see altruism shining like a light in the darkness. Widespread diseases shake our illusion of control and remind us how small we are in this universe after all. They deeply unsettle us, destroy our routines, and cause us to question unshakable assumptions about our safety, health, and security. But in trying times we are further exposed as the creatures we are, made in the image of God. We see sacrificial care, unconditional love, creative ingenuity, and unwavering compassion. These qualities can only come from a good Creator and his reflection in us.

Watching the Coronavirus pandemic unfold from my home here in Uganda has felt at times like an out-of-body experience. Our country as yet has no documented cases. But border security is tightening. Many travelers from infected countries are quarantined upon entry. People change their cultural habits to better protect themselves, their families, and neighbors at high risk of contracting the virus. The many cultures surrounding me that deeply value formal greetings have adjusted to elbow or fist bump greetings instead of the traditional handshakes. Hand washing stations—even ones as simple as a bucket with a tap—have popped up outside of markets and businesses. People gather in smaller groups to minimize social interaction.

But some things have not changed. Some aspects of life carry on unaffected. Our Sudanese brothers and sisters pray every Sunday in every church for three things: peace, the Church, and the sick. Many of them are refugees, and even the ones who aren’t still live in a culture with much fewer illusions about controlling illness and death or powerful governments. This Sunday I stood with bowed head, listening to the smooth Arabic words tumbling on as we prayed. When we prayed for peace, we asked the Lord to bring peace to warring countries, and to protect innocent people in volatile areas. when we prayed for the Church, we asked God to strengthen our brothers and sisters in areas where they can’t meet because of the virus, and for our Father to shine light and hope through us to the hurting world around us. And as we prayed for the sick, we asked the Lord, like always, to have mercy on those with malaria, with typhoid, with diabetes and malnutrition. Nothing else changed except we calmly added coronavirus to the list. The faith of refugees—in a God who withstands war and disease and famine and drought unchanged—cannot be shaken by any sickness, however new or unknown it may be.

Other things remain the same too. We keep our jugs, jerry cans, and tanks full of water, because dry season or collapsing infrastructure could both stop our water just the same. We live largely non-electrified lives, and the simplicity saves us the stress of wondering when the power will be cut or worrying about charging appliances and devices that don’t add much value to our lives in the long run. We keep basic medications in our house and live on simple medical know-how already because good doctors are hours away, coronavirus or no.

But some things have changed. The president of the country just asked for a month of precautionary measures: meet in small groups, close schools, worship in homes instead of churches, don’t hang around in markets more than necessary. New border regulations have stranded teammates out of country. Expat friends working with different organizations can be here one day and gone the next because their passport country demanded them back home, or their employer ended their contract, or all foreign personnel are evacuated as a precaution.

Most recently I got an email from my company asking me to consider the future. IF the virus comes, and IF I contract it, what scenarios am I comfortable resigning myself to? If medical evacuation isn’t an option and in-country medical care can’t meet my needs, am I content to stay with that knowledge? Would I prefer to relocate to an undesignated location with better health care for an unspecified amount of time? Those emails made the virus on its global stage suddenly very personal and immediate. I was forced to consider what measures I would take and plans I would make. I had to consider the what-ifs of the virus making it into Uganda. I considered what good I could do if I chose to stay or go. I considered my refugee friends who are immunocompromised and have no option of evacuating to save themselves or their loved ones.

In the end, my decision was to stay. It was a decision knowing I stayed with empty hands and not much to offer my neighbors and friends if or when the virus does come. It was a decision to stay and commit to quarantine or sickness, to limiting my social interaction and ministry, to grief and lament, to solitude and solidarity, whatever may come.

As I prayed through that decision I played and sang through precious words of faith from my hymnal, words like, “His word shall not fail you — He promised / Believe him and all will be well / Then go to a world that is dying / His perfect salvation to tell!” and “Whenever clouds arise / when songs give place to sighing / and hope within me dies / I draw the closer to him / from care he sets me free / his eye is on the sparrow / And I know he watches me.” I found peace and comfort in the Lord’s presence and in obedience to him founded on faith in his unchanging character. My imperfect faith in a perfect God is the only thing that can bring my heart to sing in worship, “Oh when I come to die, / Oh when I come to die / Oh when I come to die / give me Jesus. / Give me Jesus, / Give me Jesus! / You may have all this world, / Give me Jesus.”

But these words of worship come from a faith founded in an immovable God. He is not surprised by any virus or pandemic we may experience, and the death, the sorrow, and the fear that come with it do not take away one iota of his love and compassion for us. He is still the God that heard King David’s cry for mercy and stopped the Israelite plague at the threshing floor of Araunah (1 Samuel 24). He is still the God that passed over Israelite homes and showed his unmerited mercy by sparing their firstborn children. He is still the God who stopped a plague in the Israelite camp when he was worshipped between the living and the dead (Numbers 16).

He is still the God of Habakkuk: “His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden. Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps. He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble.” And we can answer both the blessings and the trials God brings with Habakkuk, “Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

He is the same God who has led his people through the plagues of history, and we follow him still through this one. He passed over the Israelites and spared their firstborn. He offered himself as the perfect passover lamb to keep at bay the plagues of sin and death we fully deserve. As we come to Easter may we remember that sacrifice in a new light. And as we contemplate an Easter and Holy week shared only from our homes and separated from our church families, may we remember the small band of disciples who met together in an upstairs room. They were small in number because of persecution instead of plague, but their fear was the same. And Jesus’ answer to them just as well answers us: “‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.'” In these uncertain and fearful times, we carry in us the Spirit of God himself to comfort and to calm, and to propel us out into a world in need of the hope we share.