“The Lord is my strength; He will walk me through places of trouble and suffering.” (Habbakuk 3:19)

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As I sipped on my morning cup of coffee this past weekend; my husband sifted through the headlines of our local newspaper looking for any story that qualified as good news.  To his dismay, the coronavirus dominated nearly every story and headline. On the verge of becoming a world pandemic, this contagion has now captured worldwide attention.  The threat this invisible enemy poses to each one of us should be taken seriously; not only internationally, locally, and personally but… spiritually as well. God knows what is happening around the world right now; and He also knows what’s going on inside your heart.    The Bible tells us,  “God is always on the alert, constantly looking for people whose hearts are totally committed to Him” (2 Chronicles:16:9).

 I can’t help but think that God may even be allowing this coronavirus to serve as His Divine Invitation to all peoples and all nations to consider the lives we are living before Him …and reconsider Whose Glory our lives are meant to reflect?

Having been ousted from our comfort-zones, we can no more just turn our heads and walk away.  Beyond the most obvious fact that our everyday lives have been turned upside down overnight; there are lots of little battles going on around us that tell on our hearts in a BIG way.

When Jim and I went to the grocery store a few days ago, my heart sank as I surveyed the unexpected emptiness on the shelves throughout the store. My husband confessed that in 50yrs of working for King Soopers, he’d never seen the store look like this!  Then he shared how two customers, the day before, literally came to blows in the middle of the paper goods aisle over the last two packages of toilet paper in the store!  Scenes like this just don’t happen in America!  We live in the Land-of-Plenty…right?

 As I stood there processing those empty shelves, my heart began to perceive what my eyes still struggled to believe. That unexpected emptiness on the shelves in front of me spoke to my heart of the lean-ness of soul that plagues the vast majority of people today. Hundreds of years ago, we stood shoulder to shoulder battling for our nation’s freedom against all odds.  Now, we stand opposite each other defiantly, engaged in a TP Tug-O-War in the paper-goods aisle at the grocery store! These two snippets in our history reflect the stark difference between responding to our circumstances in faith with the good of others in mind; and just reacting in fear out of self-preservation only.

The coronavirus threat awakened something inside of me that most of us would rather deny than address. As a nation, I believe we are holding onto the loose thread of our rich and Godly Heritage with one hand…while trying to cover-up our impoverished souls with the other. Empty grocery shelves tell us a story of our own spiritual poverty in a way that well-stocked shelves never could.  None of us will ever receive the Purple Heart for unsurpassed bravery in a TP Tug-O-War. The prize for that is our own emptiness…leanness-of-soul.  Spiritual Poverty dulls our faith and keeps us blinded to the Goodness of God in our lives; both in prosperous times and in the middle of a world pandemic.

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“Empty grocery shelves tell us a story of our own spiritual poverty in a way that well-stocked shelves never could.”

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 Perhaps we’ve   placed our security and well-being in the sounds of the coins jingling down inside of our pockets so long; we’ve lost sight of the life-giving words engraved on each of those coins…“In GOD we trust.”

King David, of old, understood the beauty of trusting in God as he proclaimed in Psalm 119:14, 

“I will rejoice in the content of Your Word as if I were rejoicing over Great Wealth.”

David is a beautiful example of what it looks like to have a prosperous soul.  He learned, through a lifetime of battling his own trauma and difficulties; the value of choosing the Wealth of God’s Word over the wealth of this world.

Though our world seems a fragile place right now, from our crumbling financial institutions down to our own dwindling pockets; our hearts must not follow suit. I pray it may never be said of us what was written of the ancient Israelites, who professed to follow God time and time again; but who  followed Him only with their words, not their hearts. (Psalm 78:36)  

“Like a crooked arrow, they missed the target of God’s will.” (Psalm 58:57b LAB)

Only God knows for sure where this world pandemic will lead. Maybe the coronavirus has become His training ground for what needs to happen next in our world, in our Nation and in our hearts; repentance.

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 Perhaps we’ve   placed our security and well-being in the sounds of the coins jingling down inside of our pockets so long; we’ve lost sight of the life-giving words engraved on each of those coins…“In GOD we trust.”

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I have seen the Goodness of God in our Nation, and I have walked in His Goodness since I was a child. It’s real and it still surrounds us. God is forever Faithful to His children. The pandemic doesn’t change that. It just gives us another reason to choose to sidestep the fear that comes with it; and see it instead, as a backdrop for faith. Let’s walk against the tide in these challenging times. Choose to walk inside the Goodness of a faithful God. Steer clear from thoughts of becoming the next victor in the latest TP Tug-O-War in the grocery aisles. Instead, remain a beacon of trust and hope; sacrificially giving what you call yours, to those who need it worse.  After all, that simple act might just turn out to be the ‘Message of Love’ someone else needs to cling to during this world pandemic.

“We cannot shrink back in fear and

Go forward in faith at

The same time”

—Christine Caine-Unexpected—

PRAYER: Dearest Lord, thankyou for always being so good. I praise you even in these hard times, for Your Loving-kindness and for all the wonderful deeds You have shown us in our past. Still our fears and calm our anxious hearts…forgive us for the leanness in our souls. We have even let our own well-stocked grocery shelves deceive us into thinking that we are sufficient in and of ourselves. This coronavirus has rearranged our perspectives and brought us to our knees; where we have the opportunity to acknowledge that the prosperity of our Nation past and present is only because of all the blessings that come from Your Hand. Hear our prayers… Forgive our sins…Heal our Land as we stand steadfast in the gap for our World, our Nation, and ourselves. In Jesus Name…Amen