Is This Pandemic for Your Good?

Keith KettenringChristian Living, The Uncommon Journey

Is this pandemic God’s way of changing YOU?

Ask yourself these questions:

Are you more attentive to unnecessary habits or preoccupations?

Have you found yourself more aware of hidden items or secret areas of your life?

Have you taken notice of things you’d routinely ignored before COVID-19?

Have you discovered some dormant frustrations which need to be addressed?

Have you been able to restructure your time to accomplish tasks you’ve been wanting to do for quite some time?

Have you allowed yourself to reflect more on relationships and priorities?

Have you been able to slow down and notice different or even unfamiliar elements around you?

Have you created new habits or rituals that are beneficial to your body and soul?

Are you more aware of people around you who are hurting or in need of help?

Have you more easily or intentionally connected with people close to you or with those at a distance?

Are you eating better and/or taking better care of your health? 

Have you been praying more or taking more time to commune with God?

Are you spending more time outdoors – walking, working in the yard, resting on your porch?

Are you reading a book that’s held your interest for quite some time?

Have you started a new hobby that you’d like to continue?

Could it be that this is for your good?

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We usually don’t know God’s ways since He is lovingly infinite and we are blindly finite. Our desire to make sense of things usually gets us into a bind when it comes to trying to figure out God.

Yet, aren’t there a few things about God that we take by faith? Like, “all things work together for good for them that love God?”

Perhaps it’s an oversimplification to think that even a pandemic can be used for good. This does not discount for one moment the lives of those who have been directly affected in sickness and/or death.

God’s ability to orchestrate the elements of this complex world and its creatures is astounding. We may claim to “know” His ways but He is far too mysterious and profound for us to be dogmatic about our comprehension of Him.

Yet, we can be confident of at least one thing. He desires us to be conformed to the image of His Son.

So, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to believe that God is using this pandemic to make us more like Jesus inwardly and in our actions…if we’ll let Him. 

If you answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, then you’re already experiencing this work of God in you.

There are two ways to respond and cooperate with this work of grace right now:

  1. Be thankful. Take time to thank God for what’s going on in you during these days. You may not like what’s happening around you. Yet, there is much good happening in you if you’ll take notice. Have a grateful heart for that good part.

  2. Be thoughtful. Think about what you can apply to your day from this good experience when the pandemic is over. Don’t waste this experience. Envision ways to keep the good going. Obviously it won’t be the same. But you also don’t have to slip back into your “old familiar ways” after experiencing God’s soul-worthy handiwork.

Let me know what you think below. How are you doing in the midst of the pandemic? Thanks!

Dr. K/Keith