03/04/2020 22:29

A couple of times a week, I pop a tasty treat into our oven for my family. Sometimes the delicacies are accidentally kept too long and become a tad browner than they should. A jarring siren alerts me then that there’s trouble brewing. If it occurs early on a Saturday morning while my men are both still asleep, I rush to our family room where the alarm resides, hands clamped on my ears. I then wave a dish cloth below it with much vim, vigour and vitality to hush its strident voice before it awakens my family.

 

One day last year, in the mood for a snack, I shoved a few spicy nibbles into my oven. A short while later, I went to our kitchen to turn over my munchies but discovered that I’d forgotten to put on the exhaust fan. Oh no! That would surely make the bell toll! But then … I remembered. It was Tuesday, and both my boys were at work. I breathed a sigh of relief and opened the oven, secure in the knowledge that if the alarm did scream out loud, only I would hear it. And I could handle that commotion!

Loud sirens are going off in our world right now. Unfortunately waving my kitchen towel at them won’t make them stop. We’ve been ambushed—forced to turn actors and actresses in a horror movie that goes on and on. When I walk along empty corridors in our local shopping centre at 7 a.m.—(the only time I can get toilet paper), I spy a couple of masked men and women who move as far from me as possible and I from them. Am I dreaming?

 

When I watch the news, I realise with shocking clarity, that the news being reported today sounds exactly like news reports in disaster movies! Rich and poor, celebrity and each person on the street, man and woman, adult and child, we’ve all been kidnapped by a horrendous organism too small to see with our naked eye.

 

Oh Lord! What’s happening? Where are you?

We seek answers to combat the tiny invader that has stolen our once peaceful lives. We shake our heads dumbfounded, as we hear the numbers—thousands upon thousands—myriads of sick people, multitudes dying and there is little we can do to stop the pandemic. Are we dreaming? Surely it’s not true? How do those who have lost loved ones cope? How do medical personnel keep their sanity as they continue their brave fight against the enemy?

Knowledge is armour, knowledge is a weapon in this battle, so we try to ask the right questions. What can we do to curb the spread of this terrible disease? How can we ensure we won’t get it? What are the symptoms? Who is most vulnerable? How long would we be in this state of Emergency? What can we do to help? What is our role in all of this? Will we get out of this alive?

There are other questions though, which have NOT been addressed by the TV newscasters.

 

Is this life all there is?

Is there a God I can turn to for comfort and strength?

Is there life after death?

 

Over four decades ago, I encountered an all-consuming Love which pursued me. One afternoon, in the quietness of my bedroom, I knelt down and surrendered my life to Him. My life has never been the same since. Like refreshing rains that formed a lush garden after a season of drought, God's presence turned my apathy into excitement, my dry places into green pastures, my season of tears into songs of joy.

 

And so, my blog today is written for those who dare to ask these crucial questions. 

Is there life after death? 

Is there a God? 

Is there hope? 

Can I find comfort?  

My answers to all four questions is a resounding YES!  I have experienced the love of a faithful God through life’s changing circumstances. I have been blessed by His comfort when the world spun madly out of control. The eternal truths He revealed to me through His Word are those that even a pandemic so horrific as this one could never steal.

For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever 

believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

 

 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through him. John 3: 16-17

 

If this life is all there is, then all we should be concerned with is how we can keep humanity safe during these dark difficult days. But if there is LIFE after life, then perhaps this pause in history may be the right moment to discover the truth about life. It may be time to seek and find Treasure of an eternal kind, one we can never lose, even through death.

I grieve with all of humanity at the tragic loss of life. History has been changed forever by this pandemic. We will find it hard to recover from the upheaval of it all for a long time. Let's continue to cry out to our Father on behalf of our world. In spite of all the unanswered questions, I do know with certainity that our God has not abandoned us. He loves us. He is with us in our pain and anguish. He grieves with us. 

 

I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of the whys and wherefores of suffering.  

 

But this I do know.

There is a God. He loves you.

And He wants you to live forever.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

He has also set eternity in the human heart.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

 

 

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,

whom you have sent. John 17:3

Matthew 11:28-29 - The Passion Translation

 

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? 

Then come to me. I will refresh your life, 

for I am your Oasis.

 

Simply join your life with mine." JESUS