Freedom in the Chaos

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;

Proverbs 3:5

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

                                    James 4:13-15

The last devotional I wrote was about the book of Habakkuk and God’s lesson to us about trusting in Him and not our circumstances. Realizing this, Habakkuk declares that despite all of the loss, he will yet rejoice in the Lord. A challenge to the believer, in two senses of the word: a call to take part in something like a contest or competition and also for some of us, a difficult undertaking. I shared that devotional the evening of March 18th; less than a week later I find myself faced with that challenge.   

My husband Don is a civil engineer. He has worked in the government and private sectors for most of his career, the latest at a small engineering firm in Boerne. Mid-March, the leaders called the company’s 60+ employees together and told them that there was going to be some belt-tightening due to the work stoppages because of COVID-19 and that layoffs may occur. Last week, my husband and some others were called into a room and given the bad news: they would receive a week’s pay as severance and health benefits through April.  

Don sent a terse text with the news and I won’t lie—I experienced an immediate sense of dread that stopped me cold. I honestly can’t remember what I was doing at the time – probably listening to some meeting at my desk at home, since I’m now working from home during this time – but I knew that I couldn’t wallow or worry, as I needed to call Don while he was driving home, and I needed to be as calm and collected and hopeful as the Lord would enable me to be.

The next morning as I spent time with Him, I cried just a little—not about the circumstance itself, but for my husband, for the pain he was feeling because of the layoff. He knows it wasn’t a personal thing against him; it’s just something that happened. The challenging thing is that he lost his job in the summer of 2018, so this happening 18 months after that was a bit too close for comfort and ego. But as I prayed to and with Him, and thanked Him, albeit weakly, for the trial, He led me to understand the freedom in the midst of all of this chaos. You see, despite our best efforts, I don’t know if anyone could have seen the impact that COVID-19 has had on not only on people’s health but also on the global economy. Who would have predicted, not even a month ago when we were hearing about everything happening in Wuhan, that businesses would be decimated and schools and church buildings emptied?  

And yet, therein lies the glory of the Lord. In my struggle to quell the need to try to figure things out and plan for the future or even the next week, and make myself crazy in analyzing, in Dr. Strange-like fashion, the hundreds of different outcomes to something over which I have no control, He showed me the folly at even trying. And I felt peace…and freedom. Peace because I wasn’t trying to figure things out, and such freedom because I couldn’t and did not have to. Sweet relief!   

I know that the Lord has us—and whatever is going to happen, it will all be all right. You see, the Lord doesn’t have to figure this stuff out—it just is, it just happens, He says it and there it is. There is comfort in knowing that He knows the outcome of all of this and is not surprised by any of it. There is security in the promise of that He will work good in all things for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. There is peace in the understanding that our ways are not His ways, and our thoughts are not His thoughts.

He is God, and I am not. Praise be to His holy and beautiful name!

Prayer Requests

·      For those working tirelessly in search of a cure, testing, vaccinations and the like, all because of this virus

·      For us a nation and a world to repent from our dark and foolish ways and turn to Him

·      For the victims of domestic violence, of which we have seen an uptick in due to the economic impacts of COVID-19

·      For us to realize that even though we are not able to meet in person, we are the church, wherever we are, and to whomever we meet

Most assuredly, I declare that regardless of what happens with his job, with the economy, with my job, our health – we will be fine. The Lord has us. He will use this current bump to grow me and my witness, and He will be glorified.  

 Quotes

“Worship will get you through the roughest times in your life, because it shifts your focus from the problem to the problem solver.”

“A person who is hungry for God will seek His presence every day, not just on Sunday.”               

P.S.

• I’ve created a new COVID-19 resource page on the website where we’ll make updates and share information as things happen. This one is different than the one I sent out last time.

• Please share feedback on how the live streaming of the worship service has been. Please know that we plan on having Pastor Wayne wear a wireless headset microphone as soon as we can get it to him, so that folks will be able to hear him better. Shout out to Kenny Williams for buying it!