Ongoing learning this season of life

As I started looking around almost a month back and started interacting with friends and colleagues across our nation and beyond, one thing I realized that, I was afraid and there was a “pandemic of fear”. And most of these fears were rational and logical. I am talking about committed  health care professionals like all of us, engaged in good work. But a logical rational fear, due to various reasons. But beyond the rational fear, soon there was an “epidemic of panic”, that has continued but has not changed much.

Why this ongoing panic? Because of the myriad of information coming from the nations that are severely affected, and this information creating a deep sense of anxiety, fear and panic among not only the public but also health care professionals.

This also emerges from a feeling of uncertainty. We, in the countries that are yet to have a huge burden but locked down to prevent and mitigate, are overwhelmed by the predictions and future potential of how bad the spread could be. The uncertainty is creating sleepless nights, and inability to think and respond with a sound mind.

Added to these are the expected standards of care that are being shared from health care experts, and the reality of the contexts in which some of us are. The standards are unreachable, due to various reasons – whether it be scaling up of testing, PPEs, masks and or other systems of care.

Then there is that frustration emerging from the cracks in our society that are visible during this time. Like the thousands of migrant laborers that were stranded during the lock down. A senior leader from India wrote this – which expresses the reality.

 “This whole pandemic apart from exposing the frailty of our ‘powerful’ in our nations and the cracks in our society between rich/middle class & the poor, the organized labour & the migrants, urban & distant rural, it also exposes the ‘poverty of our churches.’ We are busy encouraging the flock at this time of social distancing (important primarily for the middle/rich).  It not only shows we are out of depth in offering a perspective to this new situation but more importantly that we are ‘absentees in the public domain’ — no one is even missing us (no surprise).” 

For some of us we have moved from fear to panic and then one to “resigned acceptance”.

It is in such a context, I want to share a few thoughts of my own learning, as I reflected for my own life and of friends whom I interact with on a regular basis.

I want to look at 4 questions and leave us some thoughts to continue to reflect as we go through this season. Dr Srinath Reddy wrote an article on the epidemic in India, as a cricket match, the national programs being the bowlers and the batsman being the COVID19. We need to remember that we are in a test match and not 20/20. This is a season which we are going through and we need as people of faith, will need to be the people, who will throw the right balls – no, no balls or wide – the right straight balls of questions – for us and our friends around us to reflect….

We need to go back to our foundations and ask foundational questions, so that we can anchor well in our responses and support each other to respond…

So I want to raise 4 questions and some reflections around those questions, as we continue in this season. 

A. Why Lord to what for Lord

One of first questions most of us started asking was – Why Lord? There are many theological discussions and sharing from various leaders – available for us to understand this.  So, I am not using this time to reflect on the Why question.

But a different question. Yes, many disasters were from God, God allowed some but not all was from God. It is all not from devil, it is not all from humans. We do not need to get caught in the why question but ask what God can bring out of this situation.  A theological discussion on why is what the disciples wanted to do when they saw the man born blind, (John 9:1) but Jesus turns the question around and challenges them to think what can God do through that situation.

This month I have been reading through the prison letters of Bonhoeffer, - almost 2 years of imprisonment for no “fault of his”, waiting for a release every other week, hoping in anticipation, almost every night, bombing and night raids from allies, at one point he feels very frustrated and in his letter to his mentee, his cousin’s  husband, he writes

‘Of course, not everything that happens is simply God’s will; yet in the last resort nothing happens “without Gods will”’ ((Matthew 10.29) ie. through every event, however untoward, there is an access to God.’

Holding on to the sovereignty of God during this season of life in His world, and that we have access to God, to understand what he is doing, what are his greater purposes, and how shall we live, is what our mandate is.

The other statement that challenged me was from C. S Lewis write “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

What is God speaking through this megaphone of His, to the world today – we are privileged as people of faith and “HCWs” – to understand this – we are best positioned, if we reflect with God and with each other.

God can work out, use any situation for His greater purposes, He is doing something through these situations. It is not about our life; it is about what He is accomplishing through these events around us. We need to ask the right questions – do not ask the why but what can God do through this! What is God’s megaphone screaming at us. What is He doing, how can we be part of what He is doing through this context.

2.      B. How Can I understand?

How can we understand what God is doing and what His purposes are for us this season? A question that we should be constantly reflecting on.

When the crises happened in Susa, and there was Esther at a position of influence, Mordecai send this message to her. Very important for us to understand this, that we are (Privileged to be people of faith and HCWs) are kept for such times as this. We need to encourage and remind each other – this.

‘For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’ (Esther 4:14)

 But to respond effectively – we need the discernment from God – to know what to do and how shall we live in this season.

‘Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command.’ (1 Chronicles 12:32) Out of the 50K or more there were only 200, who were separated like this, a minority that understood the meta narrative and an effective response – that is our calling. 

Reading through resurrection stories – the 2 disciples on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus were talking to each other of their confusions, and Jesus walks into their midst and reveals to them the “meta narrative”. After the same, they talk to themselves “were not our hearts warmed, when he talked with us"?. It is these heartwarming conversations that we are called to engage in – talk to each other, and God will reveal to us His heart and his purposes.

In Malachi 3;16  “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.”

We need cultivate this model of coming together amid the world in panic  and talk to each other. For this season and future, to be that group that will talk to each other and reflect together!

3.      C. What can we learn from the legacy of Christendom and the word?

I want to share three learnings here

• Learn from history - the legacy we are part of

When epidemics struck the then known world, it was the church and christian health care who lived and cared for those who needed the care and support. Will we follow this legacy?

• Learn from the bible - how people stood in the gap and breach

“Therefore, he said he would destroy them- had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them. - Psalm 106:23” “28 Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; 29 they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them. 30 Then Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed. 31 And that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.” - Psalm 106:28-31

Is not our call to stand in the breach and pray?

• Learn from the promises and commands

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. - 2 Timothy 1:7
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" - Romans 8:154.       

D.    How shall we then live today and this season?

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of courage and love and self-control. - 2 Timothy 1:7

• Cultivate a sound mind

The original Greek word translated “sound mind” here is sophronismos, and it appears in the Bible only this one time. In other Bible translations, the word sophronismos is rendered “self-control” (ESV), “self-discipline” (NIV, NLT), “discipline” (NASB), “good judgment” (GW), and “sound judgment” (CSB).  The influence of the Spirit of God is required to produce a genuinely sound mind. The sound mind Paul speaks of is a mind under the control of God’s Holy Spirit. In the sense of self-discipline, the word sophronismos denotes careful, rational, sensible thinking. Having a sound mind requires a thought process based on the wisdom and clarity that God imparts rather than being manipulated by fear.  ³

This is the sound mind we need to cultivate – a mind under the control of God, at the same time careful, rational and sensible thinking, and one that is not manipulated by fear. Looking at emerging evidences and contexts through a sound mind

• Hold on to a hopeful heart 

In times of uncertainty, where does our courage and hope come from? Will it come from the various innovative ways we can respond, a wishful thinking that the worst will not affect us and our country (may be a denial) or a hope that we will be protected come what may – based on our faith in God?

Our hope in uncertain times should come from the “certainty of a God who is sovereign”. The assurance that the God we believe in is one who will use these circumstances for a greater purpose. Though we cannot understand it today, we put our faith in that God who is certainly holding the future in His hands.

• ·  Explore ways of faithful engagement in love

We need to understand what faithful engagement means for each of us. For some of us, it might be in the forefront of the battle, engaging actively, some in the background, supporting those in the forefront. Some others might be locked up unable to be out there, home bound. Even here we need to understand how we can contribute, either through prayer, planning or keeping in touch with those in the forefront. And not to forget the costs the poor and the marginalized bear, in many of our locations.

• Role model and Live Confident and engaged lives

1^st Corinthians 15;58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourself to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain….Why?

1 Corinthians 15:56-57 New International Version (NIV) 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A tenacity that comes from an assurance, an engagement that comes from a surety of God who will use what we do, for His greater purposes.

A prayer

Lord help us to live extraordinary lives in these extraordinary times. Lives that “number our days” and with a heart of wisdom! Knowing  how we should live and what we should do these days. Give us the ability to see ourselves – humanity as it is – a passing wind, a vapor in the wind, a flower that fades, a dew that dries up, a dust that is blown away at one command from you! Help us to see who you are – enthroned in heaven, sovereign over all what you have created, and in control of even these extraordinary times! And teach us to live lives that matter for you and your purposes these days, whatever it takes!