Today is 5 months since our world changed. 153 days. A global pandemic. It happened so quickly, so suddenly that we are still trying to wrap our mind around what happened. Throw a little racial unrest, a recession, and an election in the midst of it and we have a recipe for chaos.

Like everyone, I have tried to make sense of it all. There is a constant inundation of information. SO MUCH INFORMATION. So much to process.

As I have navigated these choppy waters so many emotions have risen to the surface. I have wrestled with all of them; anger, sadness, fear, frustration…trying to give space to them. I have prayed a lot and tried to give God room to speak to me through His Word. I came off Facebook for the month of July and will continue to limit my time. I have asked myself the following questions:

• What is happening?
• What is God up to?
• How should I respond?
• How should the Church respond?

My prayer for years has been that I would be like the sons of Issachar from the Bible; understanding the times and knowing what to do about it (I Chronicles 12:32 ).

I could write on a myriad of things I believe is happening in our nation and how we got to this tipping point. It has been decades in the making and each of us carries some responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in as a nation. That discussion is for another time, maybe in a discussion group or over a cup of coffee.

What I am writing about is what I believe God is speaking to His Church, what He is speaking to me. If you are someone who calls yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus I pray this challenges you, convicts you, and gives you hope.

Back in April, during a time of prayer, I went to the book of Hosea – a minor prophet in the Old Testament. Israel was not honoring God – they had slipped, backslidden. As I read this, I felt the words were directly pointed at me and the Church in America.

Hosea 2:20; 4: 1 –

“I will be faithful to you and make you mine and you will finally know me as the Lord…

Hear the Word of the Lord, O people of Israel.

The Lord has brought charges against you, saying:

There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God is in your land –

You make vows and break them;

You kill and steal and commit adultery.

There is violence everywhere –

One murder after another

That is why your land is in mourning and everyone is wasting away.

Even the wild animals, the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea are disappearing –

DON’T POINT YOUR FINGER AT SOMEONE ELSE AND TRY TO PASS the BLAME;

My complaint, you priests, is with you…

My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me. Since you priests refuse to know me, I refuse to recognize you as my priests.”

Ouch. In the New Testament, Peter makes the connection that all believers are now priests under the new covenant (I Peter 2).

Everyone is pointing the finger at each other. The Church is leading the way if social media is any indicator.

Since the beginning of all of this, I have seriously asked the Lord, “Where are the prophets of today? Who is going to challenge the Church? ” Where is the soul searching? The introspection?

How many have asked God, “What are you teaching us? What doe we need to repent of?”

When the shelter in place began in March, I was struck by the areas of our economy that were hit. Going out to eat, sporting events, concerts (just so you know, I had tickets to see Journey this summer and opening day tickets for baseball to see the Indians.) How much of our economy is entertainment? Fun driven? And while all of that is not bad in itself, too much numbs us.

Two-thirds of our economy is driven by consumer spending.

America is a generous nation in so many ways. However, Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population yet consumes 24% of the world’s energy.

And while we say believe in a culture of life, 50 million babies have been aborted since Roe V. Wade. In the wealthiest nation that has ever existed, children still go to bed hungry. And many Christian’s rhetoric about the immigration challenge we face as a nation is heart-breaking. The Bible has a lot to say about how people who represent Jesus on this earth are to treat the alien (immigrant), the orphan, the poor, and the widow (Jeremiah 22:3, Zechariah 7:10, Deuteronomy 10:19, Leviticus 27:19, Matthew 25:35). The most heartbreaking conversations during Covid are people advocating herd immunity. Experts say to achieve that would take close to a million deaths. God help us. Jesus came to give us an abundant life. Life is to be fought for, cherished, fiercely protected from womb to the tomb.

Jesus says He is the Way and the Truth and the Life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6). If our goal is to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29), should we not be people who tell the truth? When we as Christians share on social media as truth something that can be easily disproven, we minimize our witness. The Bible talks about the need to have 2 or 3 witnesses to prove a charge (Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16). I see good people, whose reputation gets destroyed by unsubstantiated charges. Fellow believers, please think long and hard before you hit that share button.

Questions I have asked myself over the past 5 months:

1. Who is discipling me? CNN? Fox News? MSNBC? Memes on social media? Conspiracy theorists? Or am I allowing the Word of God to disciple me and inform my world view? Who is discipling you?
2. How much time am I spending in prayer? Have these past 5 months driven you to spend more time with Jesus?
3. Am I where I need to be spiritually? Have I drifted?

What if all of this is not some global conspiracy? What if God is trying to get our attention? And the problem isn’t the “others” but the problem is us?

In the New Testament, Jesus teaches about not putting new wine into old wineskins. The wine would burst the old wineskins and both the wine and the wineskin would be lost.

Many of us have been praying for revival for years. The problem is many of us have a preconceived idea of what it should look like. What if God is using the pandemic (not saying He caused it) to answer our prayer for His Church? What if we need new wineskins? But as someone commented to me the other day; in order for there to be new wineskins, something has to die.

What in your life? In my life? In the life of the Church needs to die?

• Our political allegiance?
• Our greed?
• Our lack of Kindness?
• Our propensity for anger and violence?
• Our insatiable need to always be right?
• Our disregard for human life…from womb to the tomb?

I am still wrestling with all of this. My prayer is God will continue to convict me of things in my life that are not of Him and challenge me to live a life that is continually being conformed to the image of His Son Jesus.

The one thing we all can agree on is something needs to change. As followers of Jesus, let us stop pointing fingers at others, look inward and allow God to convict us so we can  “Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away,  that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus, the Christ, who has been appointed for you.…” (Acts 3: 19 – 20).