Sam Hardman
I have an image in my mind that, I think, serves as a sort of metaphor for where we are right now. We have a delightful UPS delivery man who is unfailingly pleasant and friendly. Always smiling. He seems to have a fountain of joy in his heart and perhaps he does. But last week I looked out the window when he was delivering a package to our porch and I could see the stress on his face. The strain. He was not smiling. Instead he seemed to be carrying a heavy burden – and it was not just our package. It was something weighing on his soul. It seems to me that that’s where we are as a society right now. Struggling to keep our heads above water as we swim with a heavy weight on our backs. And it’s not just us. It’s the whole world.
What comes next? That’s the question on everyone’s mind. And how does it all end? When will the world go back to normal? The experts are all over the place in trying to answer these questions. On the viral outbreak itself, many say that it won’t be normal again until there is an effective vaccine – something that is likely a year or more away. The alternative is to get to “herd immunity” naturally – that despicable phrase, so casually used and accepted, that conveys not just a scientific truth but also a dehumanizing worldview (most people use the phrase innocently, but I can’t imagine the Chesterton who wrote The Everlasting Man approving of it). Getting to herd immunity naturally as Sweden is trying to do, we are told, would be even more painful. On the economy, all bets are off. Seventeen million people in the U.S. have filed for unemployment compensation just in the last three weeks. The experts say that number could double – or worse – over the next few weeks. I talked last week with a highly-respected advisor in the financial industry and he said that as the infection curve flattens, there will be a near-term relief rally in the markets. But then the reality of what actually has happened to the economy – and the debt that has been taken on by government to try to shore it up – will begin to settle in, and it won’t be pretty. He talked about clients whose businesses were booming just two months ago and now are crashing, and they’re panicking.
I don’t know whether these prognostications are accurate. And for the record, I fully concur with Kevin Steyer’s post from a couple of weeks ago pointing out some good things the lockdowns have done for us. The somber tone of this post is not intended to deny that goodness. On the contrary, we need to be looking for God’s unfailing blessings in the midst of trials. But we must also seek to understand our times. And it’s hard to see right now how the road ahead can be anything but exceedingly difficult for quite some time. This, more than anything in most of our lifetimes, has the marks of a lengthy and intense trial for the world, and testing and purging for the Church. I know this is not the message most of us want to hear. But it is no good to live in imaginary worlds of our own making. God has placed us in this one – at least for now; we are “not in the Shire anymore.”* Not that we ever really were, but for many of us it is going to become much harder to imagine that we are than it was a few months ago.
If this turns out to be correct – and even if it turns out that the experts are overstating the risks (or I am) – what should we be doing differently right now in spiritual preparation for what lies ahead? Here are a few things that we should be doing all the time, but are especially needful right now:
Count the cost of discipleship – The cost is likely to become greater rather than less as this whole scene unfolds. Things that absorbed our attention three months ago may need to be cast overboard. A little reflection will likely tell you what they are in your case. We need to be praying more, more alert to needs, sharing more, more intentional in our interactions, perhaps even ready to take stands that will be unpopular. Let these words burn into your mind and soul: “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:38).
Pay attention to the right voices – This is a moment when we need men and women who have clear spiritual sight, people who see things as they are and with true spiritual objectivity. There will be many voices clamoring for our attention. Some will be claiming biblical authority. We need to weigh every one against what Scripture actually says. If we’re not sure about something, we should seek out trusted counselors. Cheerleaders are all well and good, and they have their place. We are emotional beings after all. But the cheerleading that we have grown so accustomed to in the American Church is not going to be enough for some of what may lie ahead. We need truth – and a steady diet of it. The Apostle Paul calls the Church “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). That’s what we need – and what we need to be – now.
Trust the God who is good and who does all things well – We are going to be tempted to complain, to question the goodness of God as we see many suffering physically, emotionally, economically, spiritually, including believers. Including perhaps ourselves. Maybe you have already seen some of it: anxiety, lost jobs, loneliness, despair. We are going to wonder how a good God can allow all these things. We must not give in to that mindset. It is extraordinarily instructive to notice how Job’s trial began: “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job?’” (Job 1:8). We know what happened next. If the Lord is willing – we might say – to goad Satan in this way, knowing the intense economic, physical, emotional, and spiritual pain that it would bring to the holiest man in his generation, on what grounds exactly might we consider ourselves to be rightly exempt from great trial? Yet nothing could be clearer than that God loves Job. His reference to Job in 1:8 is not only a goad to Satan but is also designed to make us think of a proud father speaking of an obedient son, with whom he is greatly pleased. How do these seemingly contradictory facts cohere? Like this: as the story unfolds, it is through unimaginable trial that God gives Job an understanding of his glory that he never would have gained any other way. His desire for Job is good, and we find that this desire is fulfilled in the end. We need to hold fast to such hope in the midst of trial. David Feister’s post last week is true. This story is ultimately good, and we must not lose sight of that fact in the midst of the storm.
So much more could be added. Please let me encourage you to spend some time doing exactly that. Because we are in a time of testing and purging, and more likely awaits. We need to be ready – and we need to hold fast.
* For those who are unfamiliar with J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, the “Shire” is a fictional location in Middle Earth where Hobbits live and is largely a place of peace and prosperity separated from the dangers of the rest of Tolkien’s imaginary world.