Isolation and Insulation
These terms have become a reality for us in these remarkably unusual days. In our B.C. (Before COVID-19) existence, we were all so busy with constant demands. We filled our lives with non-stop reasons to have fun. We spent our days accumulating all the stuff of life, then spent our nights constantly thinking of ways to insulate and protect it. We could only dream of an isolated retreat where we could all get away from the rat race of life. Today these terms, isolation and insulation, take on a whole new dynamic. We are forced into isolation and insulation. Can there be any good from this?
Blowing Chaff
I challenge us to consider this. God is always at work, and that has not changed during the current global crisis. The challenge for us is, are we listening to him and him alone? What does my personal life stand for? Do I personally walk with the sovereign Creator God? Or have I relied on the governments and businesses of this world to make my life complete? Now that so much of our socioeconomic structure is quickly being stripped away, who am I, in the core of my being, without all that? Psalm 1:4 says those who spend their whole life in this way will be like “blowing chaff” that a farmer quickly eliminates in the winnowing process.
Deeply Rooted
On Sunday morning during our online streaming service, I will be teaching out of Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17:5-8. During Jeremiah’s day, their world was in total crisis and being invaded by an outside army. Jeremiah quotes Psalm 1 during this crisis. Read these passages before Sunday, and use these truths from God’s Word to measure your life. Ask yourself how well grounded you are in your personal walk with Christ, or how much of your life is built on shaky ground. Consider carefully Psalm 1:3, which says we are planted/deeply rooted beside the flowing stream. Is that you? Are you firmly planted personally with the Almighty?
Use these days of enforced social isolation and insulation to examine your personal life and walk with the very personal God who wants desperately to walk with you. As we have said in recent days, our global crisis is like the perfect storm that came up virtually overnight. But as followers of Christ, we can use this perfect moment in time to stand on the solid rock of Jesus and him alone. As the old hymn says,
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
See you online on Sunday morning at 10 a.m.
