Quarantine Week 4 Scripture
4/9/2020
Our fourth week of stay-at-home / quarantine is ending. But there is no end in sight yet of the Corona virus being overthrown nor the end of social distancing.
At the start of this week, Psalm 27:13-14
"Still I am certain to see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the Lord;
be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the Lord!"
My pastor shared this passage last Sunday and it encouraged me. I am certain we (as a nation) will see the goodness of God again in our land. What we're not certain of is the timing. And so we wait. We wait for the Lord. We wait patiently. We can be calm and restful as we wait. We can be trusting in His goodness while we wait. We can not be anxious and we can not be filled with worry, because we wait patiently for Him to move.
A few days later I was reminded of this passage, James 4:13-15, which says: "Now listen, you who say 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, I will do this or that.'"
The way this virus has changed our lives is an example of what this verse is describing. Our family had made plans to... finish our co-op semester, to volunteer on Sunday to do this or that at church, to take a quick weekend trip to Indianapolis to visit some friends. But now, those plans are nothing. In a short time, those plans all changed completely. How true that we do not even know what will happen tomorrow. We have no real ability to plan for the future. It is very much out of our hands at this time.
The final thing God was showing me this week was how I need to just trust Him for what we need each day. I cannot plan very far ahead. I need to just trust God for giving us our daily bread (provision of stuff we need, like food and clothes and income) and also my daily strength (provision of the spiritual things I need to just survive another day). Part of the Lord's Prayer mentions this petition, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). I feel much more of that daily sense of dependence during these quarantine days. Who knows about the future? All we can do is trust God to take care of us today and leave tomorrow's issues/worries for tomorrow. Another verse on that, "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow...for each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34).
So once again we declare that we trust King Jesus to get us through today and every day that He has ordained for us.
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