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Published: 20 March 2020

I don’t have to tell you that this has been a crazy week.  New announcements, more adjustments, less of this and more of that, ughhhh.  I have been reminding our staff that this is no time to try to establish a “new normal.”  The new normal is that nothing is normal!  Many of us would like things to re-settle so that we have a new routine, a new expectation and at least some feeling that we are in control again.  NEWS FLASH, we are not in control.  To be human is to be finite and to be finite is to lack control.  All the theological “omnis-“ are about God.  He is Omniscient (all-knowing), He is Omnipresent (everywhere), He is Omnipotent (all powerful).  As much as it pains me to write this; I know very little, I’m bound to where I am and my power is fragile…the same is true for you.  Your finitude can make you crazy.  You can fight it, deny it, ignore it, dispute it, and fear it, but a microbe that you can’t even see will remind you, to be human is to be fragile.   Your finitude can do something else, it can drive you to God.  You can humble yourself under His mighty hand and let Him lift you up.  This isn’t cowardly resignation.  This is the beginning of wisdom.  (See Proverbs 1:7).  So, to answer the question, “Now what?,” we answer, “we will trust God and do what we know to do and leave the outcomes to Him.”  Of course, that will require confidence in His goodness and that may take some thoughtful meditation.  Do you have the time for that?

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Published: 13 March 2020

The world is in a hullaballoo over COVID-19, otherwise known as the Corona virus. It has
reminded me of the chapter in Mere Christianity by C.S.Lewis titled, “Good Infection.” He
wrote, “Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to
get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If
you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has
them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone.” We
have to be infected by, even immersed into the Trinity if we are to “have what God has.” Lewis
went on, “Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once man is separated
from God, what can he do but wither and die?” If you are a follower of Christ, you “have it.”
You and I cannot give the life but we are carriers of the infection and hopefully we are showing
some symptoms! How could we be carriers of eternal life and not have symptoms? In our
study for Sunday, we’ll take a look at six symptoms of gospel character. Do you have it?