Spirituality: What’s Your Problem?
So has this COVID-19 impacted your life so much that it has weakened your faith and negatively impacted your spirituality? Before you get too discouraged, think about the lives of the saints who lived before you and what they had to face. COVID-19 has impacted us for about six months, but what they faced often lasted years, if not a lifetime.
The direction of God is given for your good.
If you are a young person, think of the problems faced by young people in the Bible and compare it to what is happening to you. Think of Daniel and his three friends in Babylon. They were forcefully taken from their homes and family and found themselves living among people who were so strange. They were given new names and told they had to eat food which violated their young faith. It was not a virus they faced but the fiery furnace. How does that compare with what you are facing? So, what’s your problem?
If you are older and wish that things could be like they used to be, think about the older saints who returned from Babylonian captivity. The journey to Jerusalem was so dangerous that the king offered them his army to protect them. The city was in ruins. It was in such a condition that when they cast lots as to who would live in the city, the losers had to go there. The temple was rebuilt, and those older Jews who had seen Solomon’s temple wept when they compared their temple to that one. How does that compare with what you are facing with the virus? So, what’s your problem?
As you think about the adversity you are facing take time to read Hebrews 11. The first part describes the trials faced by the righteous in their world. How does what you are facing compare with Noah’s life in a world so evil that no one ever thought of God? Abraham left the modern city of Ur to spend the rest of his life in tents, and when his wife died, he owned none of the land and had to purchase a burial plot from others.
Read the last half of the chapter of the lives of those saints. “Still others had trial of mocking and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy.” How does that compare with what you are facing? What’s your problem?
Think of all Paul endured (2 Cor. 11:24-28). Yet, he looked at all of this adversity and described it as light affliction, lasting just a moment (2 Cor. 4:17). So how does your COVID-19 trial of six months compare to his lifetime of trials? So, what’s your problem?
Never forget this truth. God is still on His throne!