If you prefer to read my thoughts:
I heard this morning that 90% of mental illness is due to how we deal with pain.
I also heard (on the news) a reporter say that the Coronavirus was like the wind. We don’t know where it came from or where it is going.
I wonder if he has ever read about the Spirit before. Such a greater contagious wind.
Eagles are among the few birds who fly towards storms. Most other birds fly away. The eagle locks its wings into position and uses the winds of the storm to make it rise above it. From there, you have a much wider vantage point and perspective.
I like to think of myself as an eagle when I face pain. My wings ferociously and fearlessly lock into place and I give the storm a high five on my way up. I soar above storms to see the bigger picture. I ask God what He is doing. I zoom out.
This is the promise fulfilled of Romans 5:3-4 in my life. That’s what causes your wings to bow down with eyes wide open.
With this virus, I see revival up there. I see hearts turning to God. I see answered prayers for revival in America.
I don’t see this vision when I am fleeing in fear from the storm. There you get pummeled.
I see facing this perspective with clarity when I face the storm head on and soar above it. There I am in awe of God’s handiwork.
Watch here starting at 7:10. “When the storm is present, the eagle rests.”
Not sure if you have ever actually read the Bible all the way through, but God brought plagues many times. I think it is interesting how people are so quick to say what God does and doesn’t do….I guess based on their own opinion.
Cuz I read the plagues in Exodus, the calf with the plague in Exodus 32:34 with the calf, Numbers 11:32, when leaders spread a bad report about the Promised land in Numbers 14:36, Numbers 16: 46, Numbers 25:6, Number 25:11, Deut 28:15ff, Deut 32:23, 1 Chron 21:14…..just to name a few….and I can’t help but think…the text means what it says over and over and over again.
If you don’t read it, then sure “ignorance is bliss” but you get confused when suffering happens and question God. I get that. But you gotta read and get to know the One you claim to follow. Life makes so much more sense. There you find His character, His ways and His goodness.
“Teresa, that is God of the Old Testament.”
Like He changes.
Like those stories aren’t meant to show us Jesus because Jesus is God.
Yes, there was the old temple with sacrifices in the Old Testament.
But we are the new temple now with His sacrifice. However, we are also called to give our lives as living sacrifices.
He is the same yesterday, today and forever. I find Him in the Old Testament and the New. He isn’t like us. He doesn’t have a “pre-teen” stage or a B.Himself. stage. He wasn’t “different” then. He was and is and will be I AM.
We have a B.C. life. TT B.C. was a mess. I think we think the same of God B.C. and I believe we are missing out on a Good Father.
So, if you are a person who says God doesn’t bring plagues, then I would have to ask have you ever read the Bible cover to cover? We make God in our image and it’s dangerous.
If your teachers can get you to believe what God did in the Old Testament wasn’t true, they can also get you to doubt the New Testament. Your faith will be deconstructed…step by step, until your foundation of doubt is so strong, you walk away all together from the faith.
We like to pick and choose what we “eat” from the Bible. I’m concerned we have become picky eaters without knowing the whole menu. Like we are currently “eating” the parts of the Old Testament that talk about quarantining but can’t even admit that He punishes or disciplines.
I read recently this from Leviticus 26
14 “However, if you do not listen to me or obey all these commands, 15 and if you break my covenant by rejecting my decrees, treating my regulations with contempt, and refusing to obey my commands, 16 I will punish you. I will bring sudden terrors upon you—wasting diseases and burning fevers that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will plant your crops in vain because your enemies will eat them. 17 I will turn against you, and you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will run even when no one is chasing you!
18 “And if, in spite of all this, you still disobey me, I will punish you seven times over for your sins. 19 I will break your proud spirit by making the skies as unyielding as iron and the earth as hard as bronze. 20 All your work will be for nothing, for your land will yield no crops, and your trees will bear no fruit.
21 “If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey me, I will inflict disaster on you seven times over for your sins. 22 I will send wild animals that will rob you of your children and destroy your livestock. Your numbers will dwindle, and your roads will be deserted.
23 “And if you fail to learn the lesson and continue your hostility toward me, 24 then I myself will be hostile toward you. I will personally strike you with calamity seven times over for your sins. 25 I will send armies against you to carry out the curse of the covenant you have broken. When you run to your towns for safety, I will send a plague to destroy you there, and you will be handed over to your enemies. 26 I will destroy your food supply, so that ten women will need only one oven to bake bread for their families. They will ration your food by weight, and though you have food to eat, you will not be satisfied.
27 “If in spite of all this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me, 28 then I will give full vent to my hostility. I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. 29 Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. 30 I will destroy your pagan shrines and knock down your places of worship. I will leave your lifeless corpses piled on top of your lifeless idols,a]”>[a] and I will despise you. 31 I will make your cities desolate and destroy your places of pagan worship. I will take no pleasure in your offerings that should be a pleasing aroma to me. 32 Yes, I myself will devastate your land, and your enemies who come to occupy it will be appalled at what they see. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and bring out my sword against you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then at last the land will enjoy its neglected Sabbath years as it lies desolate while you are in exile in the land of your enemies. Then the land will finally rest and enjoy the Sabbaths it missed. 35 As long as the land lies in ruins, it will enjoy the rest you never allowed it to take every seventh year while you lived in it.
36 “And for those of you who survive, I will demoralize you in the land of your enemies. You will live in such fear that the sound of a leaf driven by the wind will send you fleeing. You will run as though fleeing from a sword, and you will fall even when no one pursues you. 37 Though no one is chasing you, you will stumble over each other as though fleeing from a sword. You will have no power to stand up against your enemies. 38 You will die among the foreign nations and be devoured in the land of your enemies. 39 Those of you who survive will waste away in your enemies’ lands because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
40 “But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me. 41 When I have turned their hostility back on them and brought them to the land of their enemies, then at last their stubborn hearts will be humbled, and they will pay for their sins. 42 Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land must be abandoned to enjoy its years of Sabbath rest as it lies deserted. At last the people will pay for their sins, for they have continually rejected my regulations and despised my decrees.
44 “But despite all this, I will not utterly reject or despise them while they are in exile in the land of their enemies. I will not cancel my covenant with them by wiping them out, for I am the Lord their God. 45 For their sakes I will remember my ancient covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of all the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.”
46 These are the decrees, regulations, and instructions that the Lord gave through Moses on Mount Sinai as evidence of the relationship between himself and the Israelites.
Oh, T.T., T.T., T.T. that is SO old Covenant.
Really? Okay let’s look at New Covenant.
Oh but Teresa, He doesn’t do that anymore.
Have you read Revelation? That’s what’s coming. You can bank on it. It’s so A.D.
Rev 9:20 But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk!
Rev 15: 1 Then I saw in heaven another marvelous event of great significance. Seven angels were holding the seven last plagues, which would bring God’s wrath to completion.
Rev 16:9 Everyone was burned by this blast of heat, and they cursed the name of God, who had control over all these plagues. They did not repent of their sins and turn to God and give him glory.
He’s so New Testament too. He’s not B.C. and A.D. He was, and is and is to come.
I love all of Him.
Last year, in November, when I was on the Camino, God told me to persevere one day while hiking. We were at the end of a 20 mile hike day. The winds were strong and I was soaking wet.
I recalled the USD I had on me that I couldn’t get exchanged into Euros anywhere. God showed me how futile USD would be in America when persecution came. I had no idea the Coronavirus was coming. It doesn’t matter how much you have in your pocket, when toilet paper is out….it’s out. When food is not on the shelf, it’s gone.
He is stripping away lesser gods that we hold onto, to call us to persevere and hold onto Him. That’s His desire.
My friend recently said we are the Joseph generation. That we have been storing up the word of God and the people who are hungry will come. We will feed the hungry. When you’re hungry, you aren’t picky.
Josephs are one that have no “you do this God and I’m not following You” in their lives. They prosper in prison and in palaces. They flourish wherever they are planted.
So what’s the hope? At the end of your greatest fear, God is there.
Imagine the worst thing that could happen with this virus….and if you choose to face the storm like that, you will actually soar above it. And you will see Jesus there.
I don’t have a worst case scenario. I have taken it all the way out. Let’s say to death…shoot, praise God, I see Jesus. Face to face with the One I feared and loved.
The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy but God comes to give us life and life abundantly.
Abundant life is knowing that Jesus is enough.
He is a good Father who has good gifts for His children. That is what I am seeing. I am seeing a nation that COULD turn back to Him. That’s His desire. That we be restored to Him. His end goal is relationship.
That’s what I see when I soar and I use that storm to rest.
