Live While You are Alive . . . even in a Pandemic

How do we live during this unsettling time? Is God still God? Can we children of God practice what we preach as in the times of relative peace?

Jesus comforted and warned His beloved disciples (including us) just hours before He died:

I have told you these things so that you will be whole and at peace.
In this world, you will be plagued with times of trouble, but you need not fear;
I have triumphed over this corrupt world order.
John 16:33 VOICE

Jesus’ words set it all in perspective and give a healthy balance to the “borderline hysteria” erupting over the coronavirus epidemic.

Let us live while we are alive . . . until the Lord calls us home. And let us be smart and deal with what is before us. Just as God wills us to do day by day while we are on this earth.

And let’s listen to the words of C.S. Lewis who weathered the dangers and uncertainty of living through constant bombings of his homeland during WWII. We can apply them to the dangers and uncertainty of our living through COVID-19 (our “atomic bomb”) which has become a global pandemic.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

Quoted in The Gospel Coalition. March 12, 2020

Stuart Briscoe* says,

First, ask God to grant you His peace.
Second, ask the God of peace to stand with you.

Because anxiety and worry are powerless in the face of the God of peace.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 
Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 
Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:6-9 NLT

*More Teachings On Overcoming Worry & Anxiety ►

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Thank you, Marianne Nestor for posting the following song on Facebook . . . reminding me of those sweet preschoolers who many years ago sang this amazing song. They introduced their teacher (me) to the simple yet deep “theology” in this song. Thank you, Mackenzie, Sarah, Patrick, Jared, and David.