Come back with me to the first of January. Do you remember what life was like? Remember we had to sit in heavy traffic to get to work? We had to jump from meetings to more meetings. We had to take our children to their soccer games. We had to take them to ballet lessons. We had to rush through meals. We had to pick up dry cleaning. If we are honest, we knew our busy lives were on autopilot, but no one knew what, if anything, we could do about it.
Then one day, the coronavirus invaded our planet. No more traffic. No more ballet. Families stayed at home and spent time together, a lot of time. They ate meals, together! There was time for unhurried conversation. They watched movies on Disney+. A friend said to me she has been having more time with her husband and children, something she was not quite able to do in the past. I returned last week from the Bay Area and while I was there, I saw software engineers and workers in the tech industry holding their children’s hands and walking towards the park—a rare sight. No one would say the coronavirus was a gift, but in a strange way, it was a gift, just not your usual kind of gift. Had it not been for the coronavirus, each of us would still be living our 100 m.p.h. lives.
Now come with me into the future. When this coronavirus is over, what will your life look like? Will it look differently? Or will it look the same as before? Will your focus and priorities change? Or will they go back to the way they were before?
The Apostle Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The first thing I notice in this verse is a contrast. “Conformed” is in contrast to “transformed”. The second thing I notice is that he wrote the two words in the passive voice. If you recall from our English grammar classes in school, the passive voice says that the person is not the one doing the action. Rather, the action is being done to the person by another person. Paul was saying to the Christians in Rome they must not allow themselves to be conformed by the world, but instead be transformed by God. God does the transformation. They only had to agree and to cooperate. Which brings me to the third thing I notice. They let God transform them each time they renewed their minds. In the past, they didn’t want to have anything to do with God, and the way they thought about everything was at odds with him. After they had been shown mercy, the way they thought about everything was now in agreement with him.
If I were to ask you why is our nation in a Shelter in Place order? You would answer me it is because there is a contagious coronavirus, and you would be right. But what if God is behind the coronavirus? What I meant to ask is what if God is using the coronavirus to send us a message? What if God wants us to reevaluate our life, and to change our focus and priorities? We just would not do it on our own. So he needed to do something drastic.
Life, as we know it, is forever changed after the coronavirus. It will never be the same. That much is for sure. Whether America returns to business as usual by the end of the summer or beyond is up to God. Whether we change our focus and priorities, or we return to who we were before — that is up to us.