When COVID Comes

We can recognize the Lord as our source of help; when we are beset by difficulties, we can know that 
He is with us - and that He is for us. Psalm 94 states:
17 Unless the Lord had been my help, My soul would soon have settled in silence.
18 If I say, "My foot slips," Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.
19 In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.

Fear can cripple, yet God's power comes to set us free.  He calls us to turn to hope, release His power, and begin to recognize that He is with us in the difficult times we face. In verse 17 of this passage, the Psalmist reflects on his "soul" that would have "settled in silence." This tells me that we can continue to look to Him, think upon His promises, and worship our God, because He is good and He is faithful. We know that He loves us and by His Spirit, will provide us with comfort.

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In Psalm 56, we find the Psalmist reflecting on his enemies and realizing that he was accompanied by 
God in the midst of his travail. We can read:
3 Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.
4 In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?

The announcement that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus certainly has a chilling effect.  We are reminded that this is a disease from which no one is exempt.  Certainly, we can take precautions, but the virus is so dangerous and so pervasive.  I would encourage you to pray for your President and his wife.  We know that this is a disease from which thousands have died, a disruptive menace that has forced essentially all of us to dramatically adjust their lives.

I do want to provide some stories that you might call "survival" stories today.  Many do not experience serious symptoms of COVID-19; on the other end of the spectrum, many have lost their lives directly because of COVID or when COVID was present.  

Noted New York City pastor A.R. Bernard of the Christian Cultural Center is a church leader who had a very difficult time with the disease.  The Christian Post reports that:

With a preexisting condition of asthma, the respected minister said he was placed on oxygen while he literally watched life flash before his eyes.

"I prayed and said, 'Lord this is all in your hands.’ And I began to reflect on life and ministry, etc.,” he recalled. “By the end of the day, they took me to the room, and I began to experience isolation and the feelings of isolation.”

After that his health declined, his breathing became "labored" and he "lost his sense of taste and smell."  Then weird dreams - nightmares - and what the article said he described as "out-of-body experiences" began. He shared about this instance: “I began to shake, my body began to tremor uncontrollably, and things began to get dark,” adding, “I was sleeping. But every time I closed my eyes to go to sleep, I felt like I was floating in the dark. It became increasingly intense.”

His treatment, leading to recovery, included hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

The Post article included comments from naturopathic doctor Mark Sherwood, who commented on the spiritual elements of the disease; He said, “There is a spiritual battle here going on because I think the Bible says clearly that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. So let's talk about what God did not give us and that's that spirit of fear..."

Christian musical artist Charles Billingsley, who also battled COVID, experienced that fear and told The Christian Post, "So you have this psychological side of this whole thing. Then the emotional side because it just lasts forever and it wears on you. And because of that, from the spiritual perspective of things, I was doing my best just to stay in the Word and keep my mind stayed on the Lord and praying and asking the Lord to heal me.”  As the article says, consistent with what he related to me in our interview on The Meeting House, worship played a key role in his ability to combat and cope with the virus.  The article also says that meditation on Scripture was important.

Let's run through some sound principles that we can remember when we face difficulties in the health realm - or any other area where trials come.

First we can reject fear.  Fear can be decapitating to us emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We need strong minds and surrendered emotions in order to face challenges - our thoughts and emotions surrendered to Christ.

And, as the two ministers I spotlighted teach us, we can also recognize the spiritual elements.  We know that we have an enemy, and his purpose is described by Jesus in John chapter 10; he wants to steal, kill, and destroy.  Satan wants to rob us of our hope, our joy, and cloud our reason for living. He desires to infect our minds in the midst of our adversity.  We realize that God's Word is the antidote for his poison.

Always, we can rely on the presence of God.  We may feel helpless or hopeless, but when we realize that God is with us and when we call out to Him and know He is walking with us through our trial, we can draw great strength from that.  

Finally, we can remember to rejoice in His faithfulness.  Let's get our definition right, though.  God is faithful and responsible for the results when we call out to Him.  We may not have experienced His healing or deliverance from a trying situation.  But, we can continue to worship, because we know that He is with us, working mightily in order that His perfect work, as James reminds us, can be accomplished.