Tears May Tarry for Now

Trusting God in Times to Weep

Article by Carolyn Mahaney 

When I answered the phone that evening, I heard my daughter-in-law’s trembling voice: “I just found out that my sister may have only twenty-four hours left to live.”

She immediately caught a flight to California, hoping to be with her oldest sister one last time. The next morning, I received this text message: “I didn’t make it. She passed away.” Her sister’s passing came just five days after the anniversary of her mom’s death, six years earlier. Of course there were tears. Many tears.

Whether you are enduring the loss of your loved one, facing your parents’ divorce, discovering your husband’s unfaithfulness, abiding your teenager’s hostility, learning about your friend’s betrayal, or experiencing a breakup with the man you thought you’d marry — painful and perplexing circumstances bring forth tears. Naturally, we all desperately wish we could avoid such heartbreak, and we would do anything to prevent this kind of anguish for those we love. But truth be told, we can’t. This is the painful reality of living in a fallen world.

Tears Are Facts of Life

Tears are a fact of life and an expression of the pain we experience. The little book of Ecclesiastes prepares us to interpret our tears. In his famous poem in the third chapter, the author identifies seasons and times marked out for us in this life by our sovereign God, including seasons of sadness: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: . . . a time to weep” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4).

If, for you, it is “a time to weep,” your emotion is not a deficiency of faith: God has appointed your tears, and it is appropriate to cry. While it may seem like you will never be happy again, your crying won’t last forever. Weeping has its time — meaning, it has a beginning and an ending date.

This is not to suggest you will one day be unmoved by what is causing your tears; certain painful experiences will remain with us always. But Ecclesiastes tells us that God also has appointed “a time to laugh” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Or, as the psalmist puts it, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Though it may be hard to believe right now, you will laugh again someday.

Granted, in times of grief, it’s hard to see beyond our tears, hard to imagine past the time of pain to a time of mirth. But more is happening in seasons of sadness than we may realize.

What We Know (and Don’t)

In his infinite wisdom, our Heavenly Father is weaving the painful threads of our life into a grand design; he is making something beautiful from our tears: “He has made everything [even times to weep] beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Rarely, though, do we see the beauty God is creating. Our vision is filled with the devastation of our suffering and questions overflow with our tears. Why me, Lord? Why this? How can anything good come from so much pain?

It is part of our DNA to want to know and understand. We recognize that there is a bigger picture, a wider purpose for our suffering, because “[God] has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We want to figure out what God is doing, but we are stopped short when we discover that God also has placed limitations upon our capacity to comprehend: “yet . . . [man] cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This ability to perceive, and yet not perceive, is a work of God.

In other words, both our desire to make sense of our tears and our inability to make sense of them have been ordained by God. As J.I. Packer writes, God “has hidden from us almost everything that we should like to know about the providential purposes which he is working out . . . in our own lives.” When we accept that we know something, but cannot know all, we will stop striving to figure everything out. Our angst will subside and a sweet peace will pervade our souls. We can simply cry before our Lord and trust him to create something beautiful for his glory.

Bright Spots in Bleak Seasons

To help us endure times of grief, God provides us with gifts each day, and surprising gifts, at that! “Everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man” (Ecclesiastes 3:13). Ordinarily, we think of food and drink simply as nourishment for our bodies, but they are more than fuel for living. As John Calvin writes, “If we ponder to what end God created food, we shall find that he meant not only to provide for necessity but also for delight and good cheer.”

During a weeping time for me (and for my whole family), a friend sent us chocolate croissants with Samuel Rutherford’s famous quotation written on the card (only slightly reworded): “When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest [croissants].” Not only were those the best croissants I have ever eaten, they also brought me cheer in the midst of a bleak season.

At this same time, I was helping one of my daughters launch her small business; not something we would have started if we knew what was coming. But each day as we worked from morning until night — setting up a workspace, ordering supplies, framing artwork, fulfilling orders — we realized that God had provided this endeavor as a helpful distraction from our pain. The simple pleasures of food and drink and work really are wonderful gifts from God in times of weeping.

Time to Weep — and Grow

When we turn to God in our tears, times of weeping also become our times of greatest growth. Ecclesiastes tells us that God uses our appointed season of sorrow to teach us to fear him: “God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

While it might seem like we have stalled, or even digressed spiritually in the midst of our tears, the opposite is true. God is at work in our lives to bring about growth in godliness. He appoints “a time to weep” in order to reveal himself to us in deeper ways than we have ever known. He is sovereignly leading us through this valley of tears so that we might come to trust and treasure Jesus Christ above all.

So, to my daughter-in-law and to all who are weeping: look to Christ, your Savior, who walked this earth, wept over sinful, suffering humanity, and went to the cross in our place. No matter how long and hard this painful season, may you find comfort as you recall the truth of Ecclesiastes 3: God is creating beauty, providing you with gifts each day, and teaching you to fear him.

And one day soon, “a time to weep” will be no more. For God himself “will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Carolyn Mahaney is a pastor’s wife and homemaker who has written several books with her daughter, including True Feelings and True Beauty. They are presently writing a book on Ecclesiastes. Carolyn and her husband, CJ, have four children and twelve grandchildren.

Come What May

Finding Patience and Joy in a Slow Calamity

Article by David Mathis, Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

A slow-moving calamity rolled through the ancient world, now more than 2,500 years ago, crawling, at a haunting pace, through one nation after another.

Unlike Pearl Harbor, or a terrorist attack, or a tsunami along the Pacific Rim, this plague caught very few off guard. Every king, every nation, every citizen saw it coming. They heard the reports. They lived under the specter. The world’s greatest city at the time, Nineveh, didn’t fall overnight, but over painful weeks and weeks, even months. Jerusalem came next. Waves of destruction came to the holy city, first in 605 BC, then eight years later in 597, and finally total decimation eleven years later in 586.

What threat paralyzed the world’s great cities not just for hours and days, but for weeks and months, even years? The rising power of Babylon and the slow march of its army from one capital to the next, setting up months-long sieges, and toppling the world’s leading cities as their supply lines ran out and the people began to starve.

And all the more, the coming calamity should have been no surprise to God’s first-covenant people. Even in the middle of the seventh century before Christ, while Assyria was the reigning world power, and Babylon was only slowly on the rise, God’s prophets, like Isaiah, told of the coming disaster decades ahead of time. As did a far less prominent prophet named Habakkuk, who may have an especially striking word for us in our present slow-moving distress.

God Does Not Look on Idly

Unlike any other Hebrew prophet, Habakkuk never turns and speaks directly to the people in his short, three-chapter book. He reports his dialogue with God and God’s surprising work in him, leaving personal application to the reader. The book’s outline is rather simple, as far as Hebrew prophecies go.

First, Habakkuk begins with his seemingly righteous frustrations, perhaps slightly overstated. He asks, “How long, O Lord?” to the rampant wickedness he sees around him, among God’s own people, in an era of spiritual decline (Habakkuk 1:2–4). God responds with a revelation the prophet not at all anticipated (1:5–11). Essentially: Yes, little prophet, my people have become wicked — and I am not looking idly at it. In fact, I am raising up the Babylonians to destroy them.

Habakkuk reels and rocks. He thought he had justice problems before. Now all the more. He responds with a second complaint (1:12–2:1). How can God “idly look at traitors” (Habakkuk 1:13), Babylonians even more wicked than God’s backslidden people? The prophet becomes more defiant: “I will take my stand . . . and look out to see what [God] will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint” (Habakkuk 2:1). He presumes God’s response to his second complaint will not suffice, and he’ll be ready to answer back.

But God’s second response (2:2–20) does silence him. The prophet never registers a third complaint. God will not leave Babylon unpunished. His full justice — his fivefold woe — will be served in his perfect timing. The hand of justice indeed will fall, destroying the prideful and rescuing the righteous who live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4).

How Do We Live by Faith?

The core of the book’s message, from the voice of God to the hearts of his people, is live by faith in unprecedented days, come what may. God doesn’t promise the anxious prophet that soon he’ll make things better. In fact, he promises to make things much worse before they get better. Utter devastation will come first, then deliverance. First total ruin, then final rescue.

To the disoriented, panicked prophet, God exposes the folly of human pride, and issues a fresh call to humility and faith, to patiently receive God’s mysterious “work” of judgment (Habakkuk 1:5; 3:2). To trust the divine in the toughest of times, in days of looming trouble. Here we have God’s timeless call to his people in mysterious times, Habakkuk’s and ours: live by faith (Habakkuk 2:4).

But what does that mean? “Living by faith” can sound so vague and general. What might it mean for us here on the ground, under the present (and coming) threat?

Will We Wait Quietly?

After he has been silenced, Habakkuk speaks again in chapter 3, but now in prayer, not complaint. He has heard and heeded the divine voice and now celebrates God’s unstoppable power and uncompromised justice. The prophet’s prayer concludes with two “Yet I will” statements. First, he says he will exercise patience. The prideful and unbelieving may ride it out with all sorts of panic and noise, but Habakkuk will wait quietly:

Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
     to come upon people who invade us. (Habakkuk 3:16)

His faith in God’s perfect justice has been renewed. He will adjust the clock of his soul to God’s timetable, not presume the converse. God is not standing idly by, of this we can be sure. He is watching. He is attentive. He sees every movement, every detail. In the end, the world will see that he has done right, never treating any creature with injustice.

And as prone as we are, in our finitude and sin and anxiety, to want to force on God our own timetable for resolution, he calls us to quiet patience, even as painfully slow as the present distress may unfold.

Will We Rejoice?

The second and final “Yet I will . . .” comes in verse 18: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” And the prophet says so precisely with the worst-case scenarios on the table:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
     nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
     and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
     and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
     I will take joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17–18)

In other words, though the supply lines should fail, and the shelves be bare, and the economy tank, and the virus come to our own city, and street, and even home, yet — even then — this newly humbled prophet will rejoice in the Lord. Will we? Not in our supplies. Not in our health. Not in our own security. Not even in the defeat of the enemy. There is one constant, one unassailable surety, one utter security, one haven for true joy in the most challenging of journeys: God himself. He holds himself out to us as he removes our other joys. Will we lean anew into him?

Those puffed up in pride will certainly be destroyed in time, whether sooner or later. But those who welcome God’s humbling hand and bow in faith — in quiet patience and trans-circumstantial joy — will find God himself to be “my strength” in such days (Habakkuk 3:19). So too for us, living by faith in such times will come to expression in patience and joy. But what again might that look like?

Will We Rise in Song?

Among the many ways God may inspire his church in the coming days, we at least have one clue from Habakkuk what such patience and joy sounds like: singing. That’s the stunning and unusual way this short interaction between the prophet and God ends — with the prophet singing praise. That’s why he ends with directions for corporate worship: “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.” These final lines are not only a prayer. They are a song for others to join.

There’s not anything else quite like this in all the prophets. Habakkuk begins with as much feistiness and (what seems like) defiance as we find anywhere else. And yet God graciously moves his soul from protest to praise. Which should be an encouragement to those honest enough to admit to finding this pandemic tripping up the feet of our faith so far.

As we’ve seen, Habakkuk didn’t come into the news gracefully. Yet God met him there, in his pride and defiance and fear. The little prophet foolishly took his stand, and God mercifully brought him to his knees. God humbled him, and the prophet received it, humbling himself. He received the disorienting, inconvenient, painful purposes of God in the coming judgment, and he abandoned his protest, bowed in prayer, and rose in praise.

Will we do the same in the lingering confusion and disorientation of the slow-moving uncertainty we’re living in? Will our protests, however justly conceived, lead to bent knees? And will our prayers lead us to sing?

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.

Friends:   A friend of mine sent this video to me.  Having watched and listened to the message, I find that I ‘must’ share it with all of you. 

It is a ‘must’ see and hear.   It will bring you clarity, hope, and comfort.  I trust Dr. Jeremiah.   This is a marvelous and wonderful message by Dr. David Jeremiah.  He answers the question, “Is the Coronavirus in Bible Prophecy?“

youtu.be/HVailav65Fc(opens in a new tab)

Friends: This is a ‘link’ to an old and timeless Christian hymn that was performed by a group of singers who live and work in Nashville, Tennessee. Do to the social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 outbreak, they used their cell phones. They emailed it to a producer and he put it all together to come up with this absolutely AMAZING video/recording. Thank you to Pamela Furr for sharing this with us. (If the link does not allow you to auto load, please copy and paste into your web browser.) Many blessings and prayers sent your way.

https://www.wsmv.com/news/a-group-of-nashville-studio-singers-perform-an-epic-cell/article_2245fbf8-6eb2-11ea-9be3-db6cec04c8f3.html

What Courage Might Coronavirus Unleash?

Article by Marshall Segal, Staff writer, desiringGod.org 

Over the last several days, fear over the coronavirus has spiked as the number of cases and infected countries has multiplied.

While we are learning more by the hour, there’s so much we still don’t know (and may not know for some time, if ever) about the virus. Which is part of its staggering power: the awful fear of the unknown.

Fear of Fears

Underneath our fears about COVID-19 crawls the pervasive fear of death, which enslaves much of the world, often subtly, for their whole lives (Hebrews 2:15). For such days, C.S. Lewis’s comments on war are every bit as relevant in a pandemic:

What does war [or the coronavirus] do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. It can put several deaths earlier, but I hardly suppose that that is what we fear. . . . Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. . . . War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. (“Learning in War-Time”)

The reality of death has not changed. What’s changed over the last several weeks, at least for some of us, is that we now are consciously considering what will inevitably happen to each and every one of us. And if we’re willing to hear and receive what God is saying through COVID-19, even an awful, deadly virus might become a strange and bitter mercy.

While Christians, as advocates for life, take the pandemic seriously, and educate ourselves accordingly, and take appropriate precautions, COVID-19 serves as a warning to us all, as well as a reminder and commission for all who love and follow Christ. Will those who have been freed from the fear of death take the risks many in the world will refuse to take, and display our hope among the fearful, infected, and dying?

What Cannot Destroy the Body

Most of the world may be deaf to the divine warning in a global pandemic. But the Lord of heaven, who governs every germ and molecule in the universe, says to anyone with ears to hear,

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

While projected mortality rates are lower than in previous epidemics, like SARS or MERS, the virus has spread much farther and wider, meaning that even while the percentages may look small, many millions may die, especially from the weaker and more vulnerable among us.

The warning in Matthew 10, however, comes with a remarkable promise for those who fear God and find refuge in him. In the very next verses, Jesus says,

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29–31)

While the Center for Disease Control (CDC) races to contain COVID-19, your Father in heaven is attending to every hair on your head. He rules over a worldwide pandemic, and still cares for your every need. If you or I die, in Christ, it will not be because he has forgotten or forsaken us.

Christ Is Better by Far

Anyone who has been given the gift of life has known the fear of death. And anyone who has found the narrow path that leads to true and eternal life has watched Christ turn the fear of death on its head. The apostle Paul, who nearly died many times following in the footsteps of his crucified Lord, declares,

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. (Philippians 1:21–23)

Times like these test whether we can say the same. It can be easy to say to live is Christ, and to die is gain when living for Christ costs us little and death seems far off. It is another thing to say the same when disease is spreading and we, or someone we love, might die imminently. Is death really good news for those who love Jesus? COVID-19 presents a new and darker canvas on which God says again, Life after death is better, by far, than even the sweetest life on this earth.

Death itself, of course, is not better. It is a horror and enemy to be hated. But with Christ, death also becomes a servant — a door into the thoroughly satisfying and utterly safe presence of Jesus, forever. Death is gain, not because the experience of death is any less likely, or any less miserable, but because of what death gives us — because of Who death gives us. Will we face the uncertainty of these days with courageous love because of what death now means for us?

Free to Risk

Paul knew that death was better, by far, than a few more years on earth. But he also knew what to do with whatever days he had left. “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:23–25). As much as he wanted to be with Jesus, he still poured himself out for the souls around him, working and sacrificing and risking for their progress and joy in believing.

Will the church, at the right moments and with great wisdom, rally to meet the needs around us, and in doing so, serve the progress and joy of others’ faith in Jesus? This kind of courage will not be reckless or dismissive, ignoring wise public precautions. One of the most loving things we can do now is limit and slow the spread of the virus. But this kind of courage also will be ready, in the days to come, to step in where needed when few others will.

David Brooks reminds us that during the Spanish flu pandemic that battered America in 1918 . . . as conditions worsened, health workers in city after city pleaded for volunteers to care for the sick. Few stepped forward. In Philadelphia, the head of emergency aid pleaded for help in taking care of sick children. Nobody answered.

If such times are ahead, Christians, freed from the fear of death, could be the first to step forward. Will we answer if that call comes, if clinics and hospitals, filled and overflowing, cannot care for everyone?

‘I Fear No Loss’

In 1519, when the Black Death reached Zurich, Switzerland, home of pastor and Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, the disease eventually wiped out a third of the population. Zwingli had been on vacation. While everyone else fled the city, however, he courageously dove back in to care for and comfort the sick, and to tell them about the hope he had in Jesus.

As he risked his life, believing Christ still had many in his contaminated city (Acts 18:9–10) and would be with him in the perils (Isaiah 43:1–3; Matthew 28:20), he caught the disease and nearly died. But not in vain, and not without hope, for he suffered in the path of Love.

He wrote several poems in the throes of the sickness, with lines like these:

In faith and hope
Earth I resign.
Secure of heaven.
For I am Thine.

And then later, as his symptoms worsened:

He harms me not,
I fear no loss,
For here I lie
Beneath thy cross.

Zwingli’s hope in heaven did not make him reckless or selfish in the face of sickness and death. It filled him with courage and unleashed him to see, and seek to meet, the needs of others. Knowing what was at stake, and what was waiting for him on the other side of death, he accepted the danger, at enormous risk to himself, to care for the suffering, especially those destined for eternal suffering.

May the same be true of us, as Christians move toward, not away from, neighbors in need; as churches open our arms and doors of hospitals become full and overwhelmed; as we embrace the right risks, at the right times, and so fill our fearful cities with the name of Jesus.

Now Is the Time

The gospel is always drowned out more easily in peacetime. What is there to fear? But not in a pandemic. When a cholera outbreak came to London, Charles Spurgeon admonished everyone in Christ,

Now is the time for all of you who love souls. You may see men more alarmed than they are already; and if they should be, mind that you avail yourselves of the opportunity of doing them good. You have the Balm of Gilead; when their wounds smart, pour it in. You know of Him who died to save; tell them of Him. Lift high the cross before their eyes. Tell them that God became man that man might be lifted to God. Tell them of Calvary, and its groans, and cries, and sweat of blood. Tell them of Jesus hanging on the cross to save sinners. Tell them that —

“There is life for a look at the Crucified One.”

Tell them that He is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him. Tell them that He is able to save even at the eleventh hour, and to say to the dying thief, “today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”

God has prepared good works for us (Ephesians 2:10). He has prepared us for days like these. He plans to show the immeasurable riches of his kindness through simple acts of Christian courage in a world paralyzed and consumed by fear. Father, in the name of Jesus, use your church.

Marshall Segal (@marshallsegal) is a writer and managing editor at desiringGod.org. He’s the author of Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness & Dating. He graduated from Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Faye, have a son and live in Minneapolis.

What South Korean Christians Want You to Know About Coronavirus

Article by Steve Chang and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

About a month after the first coronavirus case appeared in South Korea, an infected man attended Shincheonji  Church of Jesus, a cult of more than 300,000 that believes Jesus was reincarnated in its leader. This man ended up infecting thousands—in fact, more than 60 percent of the nearly 8,500 cases in the country have been linked to Shincheonji.

Though South Korea hasn’t required a lockdown, most churches voluntarily had closed their doors by March 1. That decision was emotional, since South Korean churches managed to keep services going even during the Korean War, said Steve Chang, a pastor in Seoul.

Sarah Zylstra asked if he has any advice for American churches. Here’s what he said:

Plan for a New Normal

Think long-term, at least twice as long as you think you need. South Korea was well equipped, with technology and infrastructure, to go online. We did it immediately. But most of us thought it would be temporary. So that’s the first bit of advice—don’t think it will be one or two weeks. It will more likely be two months or more.

Think long-term, at least twice as long as you think you need.

That way, we can begin to think about how best to minister to our people quickly—through online means such as video calls/visitations, group fellowship, prayer meetings, and Bible studies, in addition to Sunday services—rather than wasting time on “let’s wait and see” thinking.

So some of our group meetings that we planned to postpone until things were better, we realized we needed to just start through online means instead.

Look for Opportunities to Do More than Normal

We had the tendency to think of doing less than we’d normally do in the physical worship setting, because we thought, Why would people want to watch a video of a service for more than 20 to 30 minutes?

There’s some truth to that, but we also forgot that they don’t have the option of coming to church. This online thing is all they have. So why not make it the full service that we normally do?

In fact, we may need to do more than normal because people are isolated and can’t get out or get together. For example, our pastor is sending out a daily prayer video through Instagram, which he wouldn’t normally do.

Pay Attention to What God’s Doing in the Church

Our church is emphasizing family worship and spiritual growth, which isn’t something our megachurch can do well without a crisis like this. All the age groups normally split up into age-specific ministries on Sunday. Now, much of the delivery of children’s ministry has to involve parents, which naturally encourages them to minister to their own kids. We’ve also asked members to have family worship while going online, something a big church cannot do physically.

We feel this is an opportunity to be a witness to Christ by helping the most vulnerable. The young adults’ ministry is delivering food and supplies to the elderly in the community.

One member of our Chinese student ministry (an international Chinese student in a local Korean university), who became a believer in our ministry, decided to collect support from his fellow Chinese students to send to the hard-hit city of Daegu. As he gave the money (about $2,000) to his university president to pass on to Daegu city officials, the president was so moved that he added $900 on the spot of his own personal money.

We are seeing poorer members of our church giving beyond what’s normal. For example, one Korean grandmother wanted to donate her rationed face masks to our pastors.

We also think God is using this to encourage our members toward mutual care. The senior pastor asked the church members to practice “113” (like 911 in the United States), which is in 1 day, call 1 person to check up on them and encourage them, and pray for 3 people.

Pay Attention to What God’s Doing Outside the Church

I definitely think people are scared and more open to the gospel. If you have contact with unbelievers in or through the church, this is a great time to minister to them. If you do not have contact already, it will be difficult to meet them. Our college campus outreach has come to a complete halt, for example. We have yet to see how this will lead to more effective gospel ministry, but it is definitely an opportunity.

If you have contact with unbelievers in or through the church, this is a great time to minister to them.

In South Korea, several things are happening in the spiritual landscape. First, as you know, a well-known cult was at the center of this outbreak. It has shocked many Koreans to learn how this group operates and draws unwitting candidates. This is something many Christian leaders have known, but it’s now public. That will slow down the spread of cults in Korea, which are active and dangerous. As much as I cringe at those who boldly claim that God is judging these cults, I can’t help but think that his mercy for the church’s gospel ministry is present in this crisis.

There is also some pruning going on in the Korean church. All the megachurches have shut down. The larger the church, the more critical it was to close their doors. So this is a great opportunity to reflect on what worship “in spirit and in truth” means, and how some larger churches have drifted away from pure, biblical worship. Now that all those big, fancy sanctuaries and productions are dark, we are forced to consider afresh what pleases a holy God.

Finally, being the church without a central meeting place has been excruciating. It’s an odd feeling not to meet your brothers and sisters at least once a week. We miss it terribly and realize how much we took it for granted. But it also forces us to hold on to our oneness in Christ, and to be more intentional about reaching out and praying for our spiritual family.

Steve Chang is professor of New Testament at Torch Trinity Graduate University in Seoul, Korea, and pastors the English-speaking congregation at Hallelujah Church. He is a Korean-American living and serving in Korea since 2001.

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra is senior writer for The Gospel Coalition. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

A Prayer for Working from Home

A Prayer by Will Sorrell

Almighty God, Giver of Work and Rest,

I awake, and I am with you.
My commute is a trudge from bed to desk,
a stepping over toys and garments,
feet that feel like miles.
Ready my body to face unfamiliar tasks in this familiar place.

My eyes are prone to wander alone.
My ears are prone to hear my flesh over your Spirit.
My lips are prone to curse and lash.
My fingers and back are prone to cramp and complain.
My nose is prone to forget that every breath comes from you.

Let my eyes keep watch with you with care.
Let my ears hear the birds raise their carols to you.
Let my lips be patient on conference calls and voicemails.
Let my fingers and back find relaxation under tension.
Let my nose relish the home-brewed tea and remember.

O omnipotent and omnipresent Carpenter,
you who fashioned the lumber of the land,
you who breathed life into us from the dust,
you who are crafting this world anew,
build in me a confidence that I am your temple.

Make my heart believe that you are intersecting
the heavens and the earth in my very being.

As I rely on technology to traverse the world outside my dwelling,
let your Holy Spirit minister to the souls and bodies I email and call.
Though I am absent in the flesh, make others present with you through me.
Help me to notice the emotions in their eyes on a videoconference.
Help me to give care to the tones and tremors in their voices.
You who made time and space and planted us to live and work within them,
let my love for my coworkers and customers not be bound by proximity,
but rather let my finite self trust in your infinite good pleasure.

O beloved Intercessor who never slumbers or sleeps,
allow my midday rhythms of rest to be an act of prayer.
As I fix food and refill my glass, give me pause to give thanks.
As I sip water to quench my thirst,
as I taste leftovers to satisfy my stomach,
fill my teammates,
my boss,
my clients,
my suppliers,
my acquaintances with good gifts.

As the sun begins to fade and the lull of afternoon approaches,
help me.
Help me to view children as blessings to receive, not as obstacles to overcome.
Help me to have energy to engage, to decide, to create, to innovate.
Help me to persevere unto the end, knowing that you are my strength and song.

Jesus, my Lord and my friend—
hiccups in communication assail me,
deadlines loom dark like the shadows on my floor,
the deafening emptiness of this room threatens my confidence,
and I feel utterly alone.

Jesus, my comfort and my companion—
do not let me continue to consume the bread of anxious toil.
Prepare a table before me in the presence of my fear.
Shepherd me into pastures of faith,
streams of dependence,
and valleys of resting in your everlasting mercy.

When the time comes for me to close the laptop,
turn off the lights,
and exit the email,
empower me to want to do this all again tomorrow.
Help me see what you see in my work.
Help me see you at work.

Just as you have transformed my house into an office,
be faithful now to transform it into a home again.

I beseech you to do these things,
because I need you to do them,
because only you can do them,
and because you are good.

Amen.

Will Sorrell works in commercial banking, hosts Ergonomy Podcast, and researches the intersection of faith, work, mission, and technology. He earned an MDiv from Beeson Divinity School and an MBA from Brock School of Business at Samford University. He puts his research into practice with his beloved church family, Grace Fellowship. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with his wife and Labrador retriever. You can follow him on Twitter.

9 Ways to Love Your Neighbor in This Pandemic

Article by JUSTIN WHITMEL EARLEY, Attorney and Author

On August 17, 2017, cars packed the interstates surrounding Houston as people scrambled to evacuate. Hurricane Harvey was headed in, and millions were headed out.

The next morning, a picture went viral. It was a line of trucks pulling boats. These vehicles also crawled, bumper to bumper on the interstate, but what the internet slowly realized was that these trucks weren’t headed out—they were heading in.

Upon hearing the evacuation orders, these people ran into the storm to help.

Ever since that moment, I’ve been haunted by a question: is this a picture of the American church? Are we the kind of church, who, like the Savior we proclaim (Matt. 14:25), walks into the storm? Or, when the storm comes, do we gather our own and flee?

Salvation Turns Us Outward

One of the primary postures of a Christian is outward. Our salvation means that the curse of the inward curve of sin is broken, and we’re now free to turn outward—to love God and neighbor (Gal. 5:1). Like Abraham, we’re blessed in order to be a blessing to others (Gen. 22:17–18).  

Our salvation means that the curse of the inward curve of sin is broken, and we are now free to turn outward—to love God and neighbor.

From plagues in the Roman Empire to cholera in 19th-century London, the church is replete with examples of rejecting fear and embracing neighbor love—even when it means self-sacrifice and risk.

From Fear to Neighbor Love

This is the church’s moment to rise to its call. We stand at the beginning of a crisis. Even if we don’t know exactly how bad this will be, we certainly know that fear is more viral than any virus. 

Of course, we must remind ourselves that we have nothing to fear (Deut. 31:8; Matt. 14:27). But it’s equally important to remind ourselves that we don’t drive out fear by wishing it away—we drive out fear by acting in love. Love is what replaces fear (1 John 4:18), and love is always outward—to God and neighbor.

So we must walk into this storm. We must know that we have been equipped, by faith in Jesus, to have the metaphorical trucks and boats necessary to do so (Eph. 2:10; 2 Tim. 3:17). 

Here, then, are nine ways Christians can practically love our neighbors in this moment of crisis.

1. Glorify God by Obeying Authorities

One of the primary ways regular people can help curb the spread of a virus is to comply with recommendations (Rom. 13:1–5). Remember we do this not in fear and self-preservation, but as an act of love to the vulnerable whom this sickness might kill. Much of this compliance can become worship-filled acts. Wash your hands and say a 20-second prayer for your neighbors while you do so: “Lord, protect the vulnerable from this virus.” Bump elbows instead of hugging, and intentionally pass peace while you do so: “Peace be with you.”

Of course, you know you’re supposed to do these things, but you may not have realized that these ordinary acts of self-restraint are incredible acts of neighbor love, and should be acknowledged as courageous and spiritually significant. Over the next few months our lives will be filled with the inconvenience of canceling cherished events—but it so happens that self-sacrificial love is always inconvenient.

2. Organize Errands for the Elderly and the Immunocompromised 

This virus appears to discriminate. Children (praise God!) aren’t being affected nearly as much as the elderly. Further, healthy people will most likely be fine, while the immunocompromised or those with chronic health conditions are at greater risk. If you (like me) are low-risk, then work with your church or community to organize ways to keep at-risk people safely quarantined and to bring them anything they need.

Over the next few months our lives will be filled with the inconvenience of canceling cherished events—but it so happens that self-sacrificial love is always inconvenient. 

The church is well-practiced at bringing meals to new parents or grieving relatives; now is our time to use these systems to benefit the vulnerable. I’m a millennial, and this is an incredible moment for our generation to serve. Singles and couples without kids are especially well-poised to serve.

3. Admit There’s a Crisis, But Don’t Panic

The best leaders don’t lie or hide reality. But they also don’t panic. They tell the truth and lead courageously. One of the unique things about living in a non-authoritarian country is that local leaders can have incredible influence at times such as these.

Pastors, business, and community leaders should understand that, like it or not, they’re suddenly in an incredibly significant role. We can also do this as a collective voice—in our homes, schools, and social media. The church can help lead the public by not downplaying a pandemic that will certainly kill thousands and thousands of more people, but also by stewarding conversation toward outward acts of service, not inward acts of self-protection. 

4. Share Good Information; Ignore Bad

This isn’t the time when we need lots of armchair epidemiologists voicing opinions on stats. This is a time when we need to give deference to experts and, importantly, not cloud the air with misinformation (Prov. 15:2). Love your neighbors by sharing important information—don’t harm them by being unwise about what you share.

It’s helpful to share and footnote reliable information; it’s harmful to circulate hearsay (Eph. 4:29). Before you share something on social media, love your neighbor by taking a few minutes to at least read the whole article, and better yet, do your best to verify it’s coming from a reputable source.

5. Serve Healthcare Workers

In a pandemic, we should think of health-care workers as we did first responders during 9/11. They’re the ones risking life and limb to protect others. We should be praying for them, supporting them, bringing meals to them, offering them childcare, and supporting in any ways possible. They’re voluntarily walking into burning buildings to do things we cannot do, so let’s help them with the things we can do.

6. Spend Money as an Act of Economic Love

One of the huge effects of pandemics is fiscal shutdown. The young coffeeshop owner probably won’t get sick, but her business might die if people stop ordering. We must obey authorities, but within those boundaries we must see our spending as an act of charity, of which the root word is caritas—that is, love. America runs on small business—this isn’t a political slogan. It’s plain reality.

Before you share something to social media, love your neighbor by taking a few minutes to at least read the whole article, and better yet, do your best to verify it’s coming from a reputable source.

Flourishing local economies are real threads of shalom. It would be easy to let fear stop you from participating, but this is actually an opportunity to spend more money than you otherwise would at local establishments—so long as you stay within the bounds of authorities’ recommendations.

If you can’t go to local establishments, buy gift cards from them online to use later. Consider getting takeout from local places when you’d normally go out to eat, rather than hoarding groceries. Spend money intentionally as a way of loving others through working to help sustain the economy.

7. Feed and Watch Other People’s Kids While Schools Are Closed

One of the most difficult things about schools closing is that the brunt will fall most heavily on the vulnerable. Many children rely on school meals to eat. Many parents can’t work if their kids aren’t at school. Those of us with white-collar jobs we can do at home will make it work. We’ll work remotely, take turns watching kids with spouses, and catch up once the kids are in bed. Many can’t work remotely or leave their kids alone to go to work.

Churches in my hometown of Richmond are coordinating with local schools and government efforts to help provide food and volunteer services for at-risk children. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if, in the wake of this crisis, our collective memory was of the church joining hands with its neighbors to serve the vulnerable?

8. Renew Your Household with Spiritual Rhythms 

Your household is at an incredible moment. Suddenly, what has always been true is plainly evident—we live in a dangerous world, and your house stands as a missional outpost of love amid that danger.

Spend money intentionally as a way of loving others through working to help sustain the economy.

In a time of voluntary or enforced quarantine, all normal household rhythms have been disrupted, which means this is an incredible opportunity to form new rhythms that guide you toward God’s power in a time of human powerlessness (read Scripture together).

Take this as an opportunity to reframe how your household spends its time and practice habits that guide you toward courage in a cultural moment of fear (pray together).

Cultivate rhythms that guide you to concentration and presence, in a blitz of information and alerts (strongly consider limiting the frequency you check the news to twice a day).

Above all, cling to spiritual disciplines that guide you toward a household gathered in love, rather than scattered in fear (have intentional conversations).

9. Don’t Stop Small, Low-Risk Gatherings

Time and again, history has shown that our bodies don’t just need health; our souls need hope. The human capacity to endure in the harshest of circumstances is incredible—so long as there is hope. For Christians, this means reminding ourselves that Jesus is our only hope in life and in death, and communal worship is central to this hope. Christian community is the primary place where we process our anxieties, and preach the good news of Jesus to each other. While now is a time where we absolutely must significantly alter the way we meet, we must not give up small and safe gatherings, even if that means we have to connect by digital means.

Our bodies don’t just need health; our souls need hope. . . . Listen to authorities to stay safe, but fight for Christian community to stay alive.

 Consider that this is an amazing time to experience and remember what has always been true: the church isn’t a building, but a people summoned together in the name of God. Consider that this is an amazing time to live in solidarity with the global persecuted church, which always has to meet in homes. Consider, above all, that by clinging to small and safe gatherings, we resist isolation as an act of hope.

There are great resources to help you think through how to do this wisely and safely. Understand that your soul needs friendship like your lungs need air. Your spirit needs community much more than your house needs more supplies. Listen to authorities to stay safe, but fight for Christian community to stay alive. These things are not mutually exclusive. We can—and we must—find ways to gather.

Walking into the Storm

My prayer is that God would lead the American church into a moment of maturity, where we remember our core identity: a body of believers who are blessed so that we might become a blessing.

Let us, then, like the Savior we proclaim, walk into this storm.

Justin Whitmel Earley is a business lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, and the author of The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction. He is married to Lauren and has four sons: Whit, Asher, Coulter, and Sheppard. You can follow him on Twitter and learn more about cultivating a formational set of habits at www.TheCommonRule.org.

(Happy Birthday to my Mother (Ellen Mae Sndograss Hester – 1925-1999)

Suffering Will Always Change You

Article by Vaneetha Rendall Risner

Several years ago, a close friend walked away from faith.

I still remember our last conversation about God, as she told me that he had not come through for her. She had prayed and asked him to change her situation, but things continued to get worse. She asked angrily, “Is this how a good God treats his children?” and went on to list all that God had not done for her, despite her faithfulness. She was tired of doing the right thing because it hadn’t gotten her anywhere.

I understand how my friend felt. I too have had unwritten, unilateral contracts with God where I tried to live a righteous life and in return expected God to bless me by fixing all my problems — especially if I prayed and read the Bible. After I became a Christian as a teenager, I felt sure that God had promised me an easy life and all I had to do was live it.

For years I felt God fulfilled his part, but my confidence eroded after my first miscarriage. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. Then a marriage crisis almost undid me, and just as I started healing, our infant son died unexpectedly.

What Suffering Produced in Me

Each time something else went wrong, I begged God to fix it, to take away the pain, to restore things to the way they were. When things kept getting worse, I angrily stopped talking to God, wondering if he was even listening.

I realized, however, like Peter, that there was nowhere to go, because only Jesus had the words of life (John 6:68). I cried out asking God to help me to trust him, to reconnect, and to find hope in what seemed like impenetrable darkness. I needed peace and I couldn’t find it anywhere besides Christ. It was then that my faith radically changed. I found an inexplicable peace and hope that I had not experienced before — my easy trouble-free life had not yielded anything but an enjoyment of the present. But suffering was producing something unshakeable.

Suffering is a catalyst that forces us to move in one direction or another. No one comes through suffering unchanged.

Suffering Always Changes You

Paul says, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3–5).

Here, the Christian’s suffering will ultimately result in a hope that won’t put us to shame. But we do not go directly from suffering to hope. For some, like my friend, suffering leads to rebellion and anger, crushing their hope, not bolstering it. What’s the difference? Why does suffering increase faith and hope in God for some and destroy it for others?

I’ve pondered that question for years. I am grateful that God chose to reveal himself to me through suffering, yet grieved when others only see the suffering and not the loving God behind it. Some of the difference lies in how we understand and experience hope and suffering in our walk with God.

How to Find Hope in Suffering

To find hope through suffering, I cannot be tied to a specific outcome. My hope is not that my situation will turn out a certain way, or that God will give me exactly what I want, but rather that God will always do what’s best for me. It is a living hope in a Savior who loves me, not in an outcome I feel entitled to. I need to trust that God wouldn’t allow anything that isn’t best for me, and that everything in my life is put there for my good (Romans 8:28). God’s love has been poured into me, and all of Scripture proclaims that love. The cross displays it and the Holy Spirit seals it.

But if I do not trust God and believe that he loves me, I will not see how my suffering could be good. In the moment, it is painful; it certainly doesn’t feel good. I will start judging God’s faithfulness and love based on what I can see and whether God answers my prayers the way I desire. I will walk away before I get to see the end, experiencing the hardest part of my trials without ever getting to the good part. I won’t see anything to rejoice in and my suffering will seem pointless.

Yet when my hope is in a God whom I know loves me, God shapes me through my trials. When my son died, my faith was shaken, and I doubted everything around me. But when I cried out to God, he poured himself and his love into me. My faith grew stronger.

So, when I learned of my debilitating disease years later, I was distraught at first, but remembered how faithful God had been to me. I didn’t panic; I knew from experience that God would give me all that I needed. Scripture reminds us that being burdened and despairing of life itself can strengthen our faith (2 Corinthians 1:8–9). This is because the deepest trials make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. The more we endure with Christ and find him sufficient, the stronger our faith becomes.

Refining Fire

This endurance produces character. Suffering softens my rough edges, makes me less judgmental, and helps me value people over things. It forces me to focus on what’s important in life.

As a result, I’m more compassionate, more self-controlled, more content, more prayerful, more passionate about the Bible, and more excited about heaven than I would have been otherwise. Left to myself, I’d be more irritable, critical, and impatient than I already am, but my physical limitations are teaching me kindness, patience, and grace. All my suffering has been an opportunity for growth.

My hope is that one day I will behold God’s glory and be transformed (2 Corinthians 3:18), and suffering gives me a foretaste of both. While I cannot see now what I hope for (Romans 8:24), God’s promises in Scripture and my firsthand experience of his faithfulness assure me that I will not be disappointed. I have tasted that faithfulness in the deepest, most treacherous valleys where God’s presence has dissolved my fear (Psalm 23:4), so I am certain his promises will never fail.

Therefore I can rejoice in my suffering, knowing God is using it to produce in me what I could not produce in myself. My faith is stronger, my character more like Christ’s and my hope more secure. Thanks be to God that as we trust in him, assured that he’s doing what’s best for us, suffering does indeed produce hope.

Vaneetha Rendall Risner is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Desiring God, who blogs at danceintherain.com. She is married to Joel and has two daughters, Katie and Kristi. She and Joel live in Raleigh, North Carolina. Vaneetha is the author of the book The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering.