Most of you are familiar with Romans 8:28 which reads, “and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”. I often find myself running to this verse whenever something “bad” happens in my life. Something which makes me question, “why this, why me, why now God?”. Let us tailor this verse specifically for COVID-19. We get something like, “and we know that COVID-19 works together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose”. While there is so much to share about this verse, let us just focus on the word ‘purpose’. Like everything else, God has a purpose for COVID-19. A purpose for the world, a purpose for Singapore, a purpose for the church, and most importantly, a purpose for all of our individual lives.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55: 8-9 ESV
Just like all natural disasters which baffles us, we may never be able to fully understand why God allowed COVID-19 to happen. We simply do not have the ability, the capacity, the infinite wisdom and knowledge to make complete sense of this pandemic. Truth is, we will only comprehend as much as God chooses to reveal to us. So how do we make sense of all of this? Where do we start?
We can start by answering the call. Regardless of the state of our faith, whether we be hot, cold, or lukewarm, God is calling us to further repentance, and to realign our lives before him. Let us not give up this wonderful opportunity to draw near to him, or just a little nearer than before. If not now, when?
Now is the time to check the state of our hearts. Now is the time to display our faith and trust which we so often talk and pray about. God will deliver us from this plague as and when he chooses. Till then, let us not waste this opportunity to practice leaning, depending, and seeking after him.
He promises that those who seek will find! So let us seek deliberately, and he will help us to make sense of this pandemic, he will help us to find that ‘purpose’. Then I am sure we will emerge like David, stronger, bolder, more confident, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. And then, just like him, we will sing of God’s goodness and righteousness, and sing them aloud! God makes sense, he just doesn’t make sense to us sometimes.
