Fear, Promises, and COVID-19

So many threats and enemies surround us today. That awful tornado devastated a swath of Nashville. COVID-19 is scaring people worldwide and now has arrived in my county and 2 others nearby. Other ongoing challenges don't disappear when a big new one like that blows in like a tornado. Regarding the viral threat, we are practicing "social distancing" as much as may be, but there are still doctors' appointments, pharmacy runs, car inspections, my husband's job,.... This virus is scary for someone like me who is in the high-risk category. It's even scarier for loved ones whose risk is still more elevated than mine. My handwashing and social distancing is potentially a matter of life and death for the high-risk family members I see frequently, and with such a long incubation period (up to 2 weeks), I could easily expose them before I knew I had been exposed myself.

The following passage from a devotional I've been reading this year challenges, comforts, and encourages me, so I pass it along to any of you Crumbles walking through Big Scary Things.

"The Lord of hosts governs all creatures and their actions. All the armies of heaven and earth are at his beck and command. We can rely upon his care and love if we look to him in the day of trouble. We can trust him in danger, as a child trusts in the care and provision of his father—O what peace and rest! Who would be afraid to pass through the midst of armed troops when you know that the General of the army is your own father? If we sanctify the Lord of hosts as our heavenly Father, he will be a sanctuary to us in times of danger. He will surely protect, defend, and provide for us in the worst of times and cases. We can follow him as a cloud by day and a flame of fire by night! His glory will be our defense and a place of refuge. Let the winds roar, the rains beat, the lightning flash—yet you are in safety. The best of men are too apt to be overcome with fear in times of imminent distress and danger. But we do not duly consider God's almighty power, his vigilant care, his unspotted faithfulness, and his engaged covenant for his people! This lies at the root of fear. If we but once thoroughly understood what power there is in God's hand to defend us, what tenderness in his heart to comfort us, and what faithfulness to all his promises given over to us, O how quiet and calm would our hearts be! Our courage would quickly be up, and our fears down."

"If a man can but rely upon God in a promise, so far as he is enabled to believe, so far will he reckon himself well secured.... One act of faith shall do you better service than Pharaoh and all his forces. Fear sometimes puts men into such a hurry, and their thoughts into such disorder, that, for the present, there is hardly any comfort from their graces and reason. Under an extraordinary fear, both grace and reason are like the wheels of a frozen watch with no motion at all. It is rare to find a man with that largeness and constancy of heart and mind in a day of fear like Jehoshaphat—'Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to see the Lord; (2 Chron 20:3). He set his heart to prayer at the terrible alarm. If believers only thoroughly understood how dear they are to God, what value they are in his eyes, and how well they are secured by his faithful promises and gracious presence, they would not tumble at every noise and appearance of danger."

John Flavel, via Voices from the Past, Volume 2 (affiliate link)

O Lord, would You please shut the lions' mouths against the most vulnerable of Your sheep? Would you defend us from both fear and disease? For those who must isolate themselves and feel the heavy burden of loneliness, make Yourself known to them as the Fourth Man in the fiery furnace with them. Let Your sheep want for nothing, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Unfreeze grace and reason in our hearts, and turn us toward Yourself in prayer. Somehow let the Gospel of Christ shine forth from this present darkness. Use these trials to draw us into deeper communion with yourself. Fill us all, whether sick or well, with the hope of the resurrection, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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Please, please, please:
Wash your hands thoroughly and often.
Stay home if you're ill, and avoid crowds if you have recently been on a cruise or traveled to a coronavirus hotspot.
Text, call, or video chat with relatives and friends at high risk from this disease. We probably can't go to lunch with you right now or have you in for tea but you can still help fight the loneliness that can accompany this journey. If a family you know experiences quarantine or needs to hunker down at home as a medical precaaution, you could also see whether they have necessities of daily life or need a prescription picked up.
Here are the CDC guidelines for those at high risk and their families:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/specific-groups/high-risk-complications.html

Sinking Fits

"Christians may sometimes have their sinking fits. And though the depths of calamity into which the godly may fall may be as deep as hell, yet this is our great comfort—the mercy of God lies even deeper! 'For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Rom. 8:38-39). However, this is hard to grasp for those who are sinking and smartingly feel all of God's waves and billows rolling over them. But whether they see it or not, God's blessing lies ready to pounce like a lion upon the sinking soul. God's everlasting arms are undergirding you in your deepest extremities. His arms are strong and long, and can reach to the bottom beyond all misery and distress that Christians are subject to in this life. Indeed, mercy seems to be asleep when we are sinking, but it will awaken in time for our help! God will arise at the fittest season to help and deliver his sinking people."

John Bunyan

Atonement, Testimony, and Communion

In this year's reading through Exodus, a triad of interwoven themes attracted my attention in a new way. In the instructions for building the tabernacle and its furniture, the ideas of atonement, testimony, and communion appear together in at least two places.

In Exodus 25:21-22, the Holy Spirit led Moses to record, "And you [Moses, Israel] shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I [YHWH] shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel." The ark was a golden box or chest. The stone tablets with the law of God were to rest inside it, so it was sometimes called "the ark of the testimony." The mercy seat was the golden lid for the ark. On it 2 magnificent golden cherubim spread their wings, a visual symbol of the presence of God; on it the high priest, and only the high priest, poured out the blood of the substitutionary sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, obtaining one more year's forgiveness of sins. From that place, the holy and living God condescended to meet with his stumbling, stiff-necked, loved, and chosen people.

Atonement, testimony, and communion.

In Exodus 30:6, 10, God's command to Moses about the altar of incense states, "And you shall put it in front of the veil that is above the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is above the testimony, where I will meet with you.... Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD." Again, we see the triad of themes: atonement, testimony, and communion.

Having sat with those ideas for several days now, pondering why or how they are connected, I arrived at the following thoughts, which I encourage you to test against Scripture for yourselves.

Without atonement, testimony would be my guilty verdict and death sentence, and communion with the holy God would be beyond my reach.

Without testimony, atonement would be unknown to all but the eyewitnesses (and even they needed the risen Christ's explanation), and communion with God would be impossible, since I would still be His enemy without any knowledge of the remedy or access to the living God's living Word.

Without communion with God, atonement would deliver from hell without granting the delights of heaven, and the testimony of Scripture would be someone else's love letters.

All praise to the triune God that none of these are lacking. The combination of atonement, testimony, and communion in the tabernacle foreshadowed imperfectly the consummation of all three in the person of Christ, the Lamb of God, the Word of God, and the Son of God who reconciled believers to His Father by His death and made us sons and daughters of God with free access to Him through the Spirit. May we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to Him for providing so great and complete a salvation. Amen.

To the Praise of His Glorious Grace

"Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.  For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.  He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding."

Ephesians 1:3‭-‬8 CSB

Your grace, O God, is glorious. 

Your grace is praiseworthy. 

Your adoption of us through Jesus Christ resounds in praise of Your glorious grace. 

Your grace is a blessing. 

Your grace is ours *in* Christ the Beloved. 

Your grace comes as riches...abundance, not reluctance or stinginess. 

Your grace correlates to our redemption through the blood of Christ. 

You forgive our trespasses according to the riches of your grace. 

You lavished Your grace on us in all wisdom and insight.

Blessed be Your name!

A Prayer for My Year of Grace

Cedar waxwing

My focus word for 2020 is grace. The Lord in His providence has appointed an extra measure of “hard eucharisteo” for the end of December and, perhaps, most of 2020. I am feeling a need to trust that this too is grace, to receive the promised sufficient grace for my weaknesses, and to accept grace from God and others when the highest priority areas cause me to drop the ball in other areas that matter to me but need to be lower in importance and urgency at the moment.

For my Bible reading, I’m returning to an old, familiar edition that is thoroughly marked up. Because of that, a prayer copied on the flyleaf came back to my notice. It fits so well with my word for the year that I’m commending it to your attention as well. Maybe another soul needs to pray it, too?

Lord Jesus, we are silly sheep who have dared to stand before You and tried to bribe You with our preposterous portfolios.  Suddenly we have come to our senses. We are sorry and ask You to forgive us. Give us the grace to admit we are ragamuffins, to embrace our brokenness, to celebrate Your mercy when we are at our weakest, to rely on Your mercy no matter what we may do. Dear Jesus, gift us to stop grandstanding and trying to get attention, to do the truth quietly without display, to let the dishonesties in our lives fade away, to accept our limitations, to cling to the gospel of grace, and to delight in Your love. Amen (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel).