It's been a while since I've set foot in my old church, and I feel that I've strayed over the years. In the midst of the pandemic, churches have been struggling to fill their congregations, and have been forced by the government to reduce their capacity. In many cases, as in my state of NM, they were capped well below other establishments until the government was threatened with lawsuits.
But spiritual revival comes at a cost. If you're not whole and complete through God, you have to sacrifice something.
For my part, the clarity to seek Christ again so that I may be fed occurred on the heels of a particularly nasty, ugly, and horrible breakup of a relationship that spanned most of a decade. It ended through a text (of all things) on May 23rd, at the behest of her new boyfriend I knew nothing about, totally blindsiding me. There are regrets, things I didn't do that I should have, but she moved on without telling me.
And you know what? She did me a huge favor and gave me the greatest gift she's ever given me.
I won't wax philosophical about my feelings, nor talk about them. I've forgiven her, through Christ, for her transgressions. However, I won't forget them. But through this, I was driven back into the arms of God for His love, His care, His compassion, His glory, and His power to wash my spirit and make me anew. He has made me complete in all of this, and has compelled me to share this with all of you that you may know--as I do--that even in the most challenging phases of your life, God is there, waiting for you to call out His name, and ask Him to be your light in the darkness. Physical and emotional hurt may linger, but spiritual hurt is a transient phenomenon that God can heal in an instant.
This is the testimony of my renewed path with Christ, and through my own tribulations, I implore you to attend church tomorrow. If I can do it in the midst of someone whom I trusted for so long inflicting such pain on me, and I can repent of my own sins to ask God to heal my wounds, to guide me through this, then the coronavirus is nothing to those of you living otherwise normal lives but are wavering from the word under the pretext of excuses.
If you know someone who is avoiding church for fear of the pandemic, encourage them to attend. The churches are hurting because there are forces that want to shutter them for good.
I know you're out there, waiting to be fed by the body of Christ. You're reading this post, possibly wondering if you're a "good enough" Christian. You don't need to wonder. Your soul is yearning for the guidance and clarity that comes only through prostrating yourself before the Lord and telling him: Lord, I am a sinner, please forgive me, cleanse my soul; I accept you into my life as my Lord and Savior, and I will follow you where you lead me; only through you will I be saved, for Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price and died on the cross to cover my sins so that I may enter into His kingdom.
Amen.
Good for you. I'm happy for you. You won't regret it on that day when Christ returns and you are freed with all His own from this twisted world. God bless your journey back to becoming a child of God through baptism.
Agreed.
Sometimes we need a reawakening. In my case, it was losing her.
To be fair, I missed many warning signs and fought against God to keep her. When she went to vet school, she had a choice between one nearby and one across the country. I asked God for a sign, that if she picked the one nearby, we should continue the relationship in His blessing; if she picked the one far away, I should terminate it and move on with my life.
She picked the one far away. I fought against God's word to keep her. The pain that I felt last month was a consequence of my actions all those years ago, because I didn't listen to God.
I was listening to a sermon the other night where the pastor was saying that the thing we don't want to admit here in the US is that we have it awfully nice. There's no torture or murder of Christians as there is in China. The worst that we have is, at most, liberal institutions inhibiting our ability to pray, and hamstringing us. But because we're soft, we don't recognize the dangers in this world, and don't trust in God to deliver us from them, or to fight our battles.
This reflects in our handling of everything from relationships to day to day life. We take everything for granted until the rug is ripped out from under us, and we're left wondering what happened.
Except in my case, I know what happened. I deliberately went against God to chase after this woman. I got burned for it. He warned me frequently over the last few years that this was a bad choice. I had plenty of time to correct this path, and I did not.
I'm willing to admit it, too. I made a mistake, and I'm thankful to God for correcting me. All too often we get angry with God for correcting us when we should be praising him for saving us from a terrible decision.
Well said, and timely. Blessed through God.
Amen!
I would add though, that some people would have legitimate reasons for not going with the coronavirus. Not just the elderly, but also those who have contact with them (such as relatives or nursing home workers).
I agree.
The statistics are a lot less severe than you might expect. One study shows that without any PPE, the chances of contracting coronavirus within less than 6' from another person for more than 10 minutes is around 15%.
I think at this point there's a lot of statistics that make it sound scary and a lot that don't. It's certainly worse than what we thought in January but not as bad as what we thought in March.
100,000+ deaths seems like a lot, but in a country of more than 300 million people, it's not really that large, especially considering it's a "novel" disease that the world had no prior experience with.
That's why keeping up to date on the current studies is interesting. The figures I cited are from a more recent survey Dr. Seheult discusses in this video.
The whole MedCram COVID-19 update series is worth watching.
Is it just me or do a lot of religious people and pastors over-exalt marriage, particularly for men. They make it sound as if salvation comes through finding a good Christian woman and marrying her, rather than coming from Christ and being baptized into Christ. This is not to say that marriage is not a good thing, but it shouldn't be the priority. The priority has to be faithfulness to Christ.
Yes and no.
Part of the intent of marriage is made clear in Paul's letters to the Corinthians. Marriage reduces the likelihood of sexual immorality. The other part is to experience as "one flesh" the "marriage" Christians have with Christ.
1 Corinthians 7:1-2
The other side of the coin is that marriage is the best scenario in which children can be raised (not always, of course, but it's more likely to produce successful progeny; the opposite of which we've witnessed in the black community). Obviously not all marriages will produce children, but it's a construct that is exalted for the sanctity and stability of our culture.
The destruction of that institution through the glorification of sex with multiple partners, open relationships, and all manner of ills has lead young people into a belief that they don't need to be married. Instead, they jump from relationship to relationship and feel a hollowness they think will only be fulfilled with the next person.
Of course, what they're missing is Christ, and through Christ their relationships will be made whole. But the destruction of religious institutions has made this message one that is considered "hateful."
Almost 3 years ago, God took away everything from me to remind me of what I had forgotten over the past 20 years--Himself. I was crying on the phone to my sister, and she asked "have you thought about going to church?"
Went that evening (it was a Wednesday, and I high-tailed it to the local Calvary Chapel). Walked in to the worship service, and immediately God blew away the dark clouds hanging over my head and beamed His love directly into my heart.
I am so thankful. Serving Him every day now, and He has restored me better than before.
Such an amazing story, my friend!
I know that feeling well enough. This is the second darkest place in my life that I've ever been, but the difference between this and the first is that I knew God was there to bear these arrows for me. The first was when my mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was a teenager. I was angry with him and scorned him.
I accepted him back into my life, and realized that I only had reason to be angry with myself. (For what it's worth, she's still very much alive 22+ years later.)
This time, however, I knew I could count on God. But I didn't know I'd have to lean on him so heavily, because this woman was such an integral part of my life. She was my best friend. She was everything. Then... she was gone.
This took the wind out of my sails completely, but I prayed harder than I ever had the other night and felt Jesus take off the shackles of despair and cast them aside. I've been feeling better every day since.
God is great!
excllent post! My church opened Pentecot Sunday. There were ab 20 peopl there who came bc their churches were closed. I told Pastor how proud I was of leadership's courage, and he said some disagreed. I am in WA State, where our marxist Gov has not yet given us "permission" to meet on Sundays. So far,so good: no State interference. We reached the point where we needed to worhip together...more important than unconstitutional blather.
Too many people are afraid. Are there reasons to be concerned? Sure. But in my community, there's very little SARS-CoV-2 spread. Yet the state is still imposing its will on us.