Only a global pandemic affords THIS opportunity to all

You know those verses in the Bible that start out like, “Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds...” (James 1:2) and you go like, “What?”  This article is an attempt to press into the opportunity in trials.

In the recent article that I wrote titled, the only wise way of responding to suffering, I took a bite out of Hebrews 12:7 quoting, “endure trials as divine discipline.”  Do you realise that we are smack-bang in the middle of a global trial; every single person is under the effrontery of the coronavirus.  Nobody goes one day without thinking about it.  And so many of us have been entangled in the anxious plight of wondering what-if, particularly if we have vulnerable loved ones, our jobs are at stake, or we suffer from the effects of isolation, and most poignantly if we become infected.

It may sound weird to say this, but we require a trial if we hold out any hope of growing in God.  None of us can grow without a massive enough challenge.  We all need something that tests us before we can embark on a journey of humble trust.

The world might call faith ridiculous, but we who have grown through our trials can make a mockery of what this world sneers at in the name of our God, simply in applying the eternal principles contained in the Word — principles that are farthest than ever from 21st Century Western, first-world life.  Per Hebrews 12 we come to learn that the word “afterward” has enormous meaning.  Go and locate it now if you need to.  It’s right there in verse 11:

“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening — it’s painful!
But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for
those who are trained in this way.” (NLT)

Nobody appreciates being disciplined but the one who has faith that good will come of it.  That is the essence of humility; that there will be some fruit of growth and some tangible benefit for what it costs in terms of pain.  Few people appreciate becoming disciplined, because that too involves the painful process of sticking to a plan that promises no early reward.  Discipline demands faith.

The present coronavirus comes sponsored by the condition that it is here for a while.  It is up to us to take advantage of the opportunity and see it as the trial that facilitates growth.  It comes in the backdrop of such ambiguity it demands our faith just to survive with hope.  We can either use it as the opportunity to check out and eat like gluttons and become couch potatoes, or we can use it as a very instrument of preparation that God could’ve ordained from the beginning of this terrible global situation.  If we go to the former route, we risk dying a slow death, because obesity, heart disease, Diabetes Type 2, etc, are ours for the taking, if only we sow lazily, not thinking of the future and the legacy we are leaving.  This is only one tangible example in terms of physical health.

What about our spiritual health?  What about how healthy our relationships are?  What about what we are sowing into the lives of those who are dependent on us?  What about what we can contribute to the world, not least through our workplaces, if indeed we are working?  What about the work we can do to gain income?  Desperate mouths will always be fed, and those who do the right thing will find good things to do to fill their bellies.  (Obviously, this is heavily contingent on the socioeconomic situation a person finds themselves in — go to a slum in the developing world that is imperilled, and nobody has influence over their starvation.  So if we’re ‘blessed’ to have our basic needs met, gratitude may cause us to grow in an otherwise stifling environment.)

In this global pandemic, where this disease reaches to every corner of the globe, and where first world nations grapple with finding a vaccine, there are still threats to the success of the mission.  Nationalism, for one, together with the lack of bipartisanship within nations, and the global scourge of outrage, where everyday people are tossed and tumbled on the seas of extremes, we must come back to the age-old principle of humility to get through these harrowing times.  Pride will get us as individuals nowhere, and it will absolutely end our world if our leaders and influencers operate that way to the extent that the virus conquers us.

Right now, we stand on the cusp of opportunity; the coronavirus, and all the challenges that it brings with it, is the very seminary of suffering that we need in order to maximise our very lives, even if it was the last thing any of us expected.  We thrive or we allow it to crush our hopes.

As we endure trials as divine discipline, the very seedbeds that will magnify our need to rely on and force us into the heartland of God, we can see what this divine resistance training is doing; it is giving us the opportunity of being humble, which requires courage to do the work that is before us to do.  It’s nothing like impossible.  Yes, we’re capable of this.  If we are not afraid of work, we will move through this coronavirus period and emerge as stronger persons, readier than ever for what life might throw at us, for now and for future.  This does not necessarily mean that we become more powerful.  Why would we want more power when we have access to divine power?  No, what this present period will teach us is a capability that we will need for future times.

We can consider it pure joy that we are alive at a time like this, because the training ground is provided, and we can only grow if only we can be humble.  And humility isn’t hard.  All it requires is the acknowledgement of the power of God and our definite need of that power.