Fear the Lord Not a Virus

I am an internal processor. Which means, if you ask me a personal question, I may give you an answer right away, but it’s not until about three hours later that I will know exactly what I wanted to say. So maybe I’m a little late to the game with all this pandemic stuff, and maybe it took me all summer to arrive at these words, but honestly, I just wasn’t sure what to say.

Life has gone bananas. We’re wearing cloth on our faces. We’re making elementary children sit by themselves at lunch, or stay home in unspeakable, heart-breaking situations. We’re not hugging. We’re not high-fiving. There are no fans at NBA games or MLB games. The only crowd noise at any sporting event is computer generated. We’re calling social distance the new normal and every plan we make has a great big question mark associated with it because what if the world shuts down again, or my six-year-old has a runny nose?

Then there’s the web of truth verses lies to daily untangle. What’s fact and what’s fiction? Who’s actually telling me something real? It’s hard to know anymore. So we try our best to put the pieces together and in the end, it’s exhausting because everyone has a different opinion. Best friends are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Family members are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Church members are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

But no matter where we land on the necessity of wearing a mask or staying home or going to school or living “normal” life again, I pray we can agree on this one thing: fear God, not a virus.

Our Forgotten God

When I go to the grocery store and see all those people with their faces covered, it just makes me sad. It also makes me feel like somewhere along the way, we forgot about God. Has He ceased to be in control? Is the Lord no longer determining our destiny? Is that why we’re all keeping our distance?

Friends, this pandemic did not slip God’s mind. We have a sovereign God in complete control, and yet every time I go out in public and see eyeballs peaking at me over cotton, it feels to me like we’ve forgotten that. 

And what concerns me more than anything else is if this pandemic is showcasing where our trust truly is. In ourselves? In a face mask? In policies and regulations and new procedures to keep us safe? In government bailouts? In our own understandings? When the Bible is clear about this one: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5).

Where has all that trusting gone?

I’m not saying be stupid and go breathe on everyone. If you’re sick, stay home. I’ve always appreciated when people don’t share their germs. Even prior to Covid, I was the mom secretly passing hand sanitizer to all my people after meet and greet time at church. But now, thanks to Covid, I no longer look like the only germaphobe because there’s hand sanitizer at every corner in case I forget mine, making us all look like germaphobes. But have we gone too far?  

It’s God Who Deserves the Glory

Regardless of whether you fall on the side of virus validity or see it as evil conspiracy, our response as believers to anything and everything going on in this world should be the same: unwavering trust in God. No one has been excused from that marching order. It didn’t change due to a pandemic.

But as it is, a virus is getting the glory. We’re upholding a virus as sovereign. We’re making all our decisions based upon a virus. We’re allowing it to dictate our lives. It takes up the whole of every conversation. It is what we’re honoring by the bulk of our actions.  

Just think how different life could be if right now, we were as consumed with our spiritual health as we are our physical well-being. The Holy Spirit would have no choice but to gladly light this world on fire! The church would be a force to be reckoned with, and the devil would be quaking in his evil boots. But as it is, we’re so distracted by a virus that the spiritual forces of evil are either having a heyday, or kicking their feet up and taking a break, because we’re doing just fine destroying our own faith.

But what if we talked about God as much (or more!) than we talk about the virus? What if instead of a virus dictating our every decision, we allowed God to dictate our every decision? Which Biblically speaking, is how we’re supposed to be living anyway.

All that time we’re dedicating to watching the news—God deserves it. All that energy we’re devoting to staying physically healthy—God deserves it. Which begs the question: Are we more concerned with spreading the gospel or not spreading a virus? Make no mistake, there’s another pandemic going on and it has nothing to do with our physical well-being.

But don’t we need to obey our government authorities? Yes, we do. But again, if we were even half as concerned with obeying the Word of God as we are about obeying our government authorities, we’d change the world. The holiness of God would spread like wildfire and all our churches would be scrambling to start building campaigns.

God Alone Holds the Future

I’ll end with this. I’ve been reading through 1 and 2 Kings this summer (I think I do this every summer), and not surprisingly, there are some interesting similarities. During King Ahaz’s reign in Judah, apostasy was spiking immeasurably, conspiracies were growing by the day, the world as they knew it looked to be imploding, and Assyria was making themselves known as a fierce power. As a result, the people were fearful.

And this is what God has to say about it:

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary” (Is. 8:12-14).

God didn’t coddle them. He didn’t say, “You know what, you guys are right. You have a lot to be afraid of.” No! Instead, He says, “Hi there! Remember me? Do not fear what the world fears, but honor me as holy! Fear me! If anything, be in dread of me!” (my paraphrase)

My friends, the mountains do not quake at a virus. They quake at God. The ocean waves do not crash upon the shore in obedience to a virus. The birds do not sing for a virus. The trees do not clap their hands for a virus. They exist for God. And in the same way, neither do the nations exist, or cease to exist, due to a virus. It is God who’s at the helm.

“Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.” Is. 40:21-23

We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future. And it’s not a virus. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ who is over and above all things.

So please, fear the Lord, not a virus.