A Better Question

What life feels like for many right now: dry, unknown, unfriendly
About this time last year, I started  Jen Wilkin's book None Like Him; it was faith-changing, and should be on everyone's reading list. When my amazing mother-in-law handed me a copy of the sequel, In His Image, I couldn't wait to dive in. [Currently I'm about halfway through, and it's better than I expected.]

 The question posed in the introduction of her second book is one we've all asked: "What is God's will for my life?" It's a valid question; however, it's not the best question to ask. Instead, she proposes we should start asking a better question: Who should I be?" 

 I feel a similar parallel in my own life right now: I keep getting pulled to the same same What if? questions:

  • What if I get COVID-19?
  • What if my husband/children/parents/friends/loved ones contract the virus?
  • What if our hospitals become overwhelmed?
  • What if grocery stores run out...for good?
  • What if we can't pay our bills?
  • What if the economy doesn't recover?

It's so easy to get carried away with this line of thinking. Though the questions are realistic and logical, these what if questions are also panic-inducing and faith-quenching. They lead to worldly, godless thinking, taking our focus off the only One who has the answers.

 So I'm proposing that, just as Jen Wilkin suggested, we start asking a string of different, better questions, starting not with What If  but What if God:

  • What if God has seen the deprivation of our world, as He did in Genesis 11, and has chosen to intentionally interfere with it? All of it? God's arrival at the Tower of Babel also caused confusion, isolation, and division but was still part of His plan for humanity.
  • What if God's glory is His ultimate plan for the coronavirus? What if it really happens?
  • What if God is giving His followers an opportunity to reveal his peace and presence to the world?
  • What if God sees families dusting off board games and gathering up their old decks of cards and thinks, "Perfect."
  • What if God wanted kids, for just a few months, to learn directly from mom and dad what it means to cook, clean, repair a home, or be creative? 
  • What if God wanted husbands and wives to have time to talk through their lives, plan better for the unknown, and dream about the future?
  • What if God is not absent during this, but living and moving in our midst?
  • What if God has chosen this almost-immediate, global, earth-shattering pandemic to take our focus off our day-to-day, fleeting, idol-infested life?
  • What if God heard us all say, "One day I'll have time to memorize those verses/study/pray/write/teach," and today He's saying, "Almost all of you have time...right now?"
  • What if God loves for us to be bored because it inflames the passions of creativity and compassion that we so often stomp down?
  • What if God is providing the opportunity for us to say a heart-felt "thank you" to so many people who rarely hear it: check-out clerks, grocery shelf stockers, nurses, doctors, first responders, teachers, and farmers?
I don't want to minimize the questions I can't even dare to utter: why are all these people dying? Why is this virus so horribly isolating? What are we going to do if it's really as bad as they say? I have no idea. None of us do. But one song runs through my head whenever I start down this rabbit trail: "He's got the whole world in His hands." Don't doubt that the Spirit can speak most powerfully through our most simple messages.

So I'm daring you--just like I dared myself--to hold the "What if?" questions of fear and hopelessness and change them to start with, "What if God?"

If we do, maybe we'll have our hearts, minds, and focus in the right place. Maybe we'll have the perfect words of encouragement and love and promise for the person who needs to hear it. Maybe we'll see all the craziness in an entirely new light: He's got the whole world in His hands. You can believe that.

Always praying for you,
Leslie


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