What Now? (Coronavirus)
It’s been a crazy time since the last time I recorded a podcast. I had to pause for a minute because I didn’t want to come on here and say something trite. I feel like my emotions on a given day have been all over the place. There's the joy that my college son is home and all my kids are together and we're cooking and having family dinners and that's so fun. Then I turn on the news and I feel a lot of panic. Then I realize the implications of what this means for my friends that are doctors and nurses and I'm checking on them. There's a lot of sadness and just the reality of how many of you are out there serving and you're not at home with your families. Then there's the reality of any little cough in our house and we are scared it’s going to hit our family.
We’re scared of aging parents. There’s a new emotion, a new feeling, and a new fear descending on us almost every minute. Not to mention all of the realities and the circumstances. So many of you have lost jobs. So many of you fear what this means for your families or for yourself. It's nearly too much to take in. As a leader of an organization that employs many people, I have had all the same fears and all the same questions of what does this mean for our family and what does this mean for the people I love and how do we help?
I've spent a lot of yo-yo time in the last two weeks, probably like all of us have. I go from fearful to peaceful and trusting. I wanted to wait until I really felt God prompting me to say something. So I'm here today speaking to you out of conviction, out of trembling hands. Not because I'm nervous or scared right now, but because I'm weighted and I truly believe that this is a moment for our generation. I truly believe this is our moment. We have lived somewhat comfortably and we have lived (for most of us) with what we need and many of us with a lot more than what we need. And in a moment where on almost every level, unless you're sitting there holding Amazon stock, there's this fear that all of what we knew is gone and all of what we built our lives on and put our hope in is gone. I want to come to you with great excitement and hope. I feel the gravity of this moment. I feel the gravity of being alive right now to go through this together.
We named this podcast Made for This. If you look at the picture on the show, it's me smiling in the sun, and it’s made for living to the fullest, made for obeying God in our day and doing all that he has for us. Today, this is what he has for us. We were also made for this moment. We were made for the moments where we struggle. We were made for a moment where everything we know life as we know it is gone in a week. We were made for that too. We were uniquely gifted with insight and gifts and visions as to how to lead and love our people through this. It's not a secret that there's a lot of beauty in just slowing down and being together as friends and family in this time, but there has to be more than just us huddled up. I want to talk to those of us that can't go out and be helpers and feel that being confined in our homes is the best and most loving thing we can do.
I want to talk about what it looks like to follow God in this season and we're going to talk about this in the coming weeks. We're going to talk together about what it looks like to trust God in this moment. This is the moment that he's asking us to follow him. It looks night and day different than it did a week ago. However, our mission, our vision, our calling has not changed. It is the exact same. So what does it look like? This morning as I prayed about this time with you, I was taken to the story of Moses and I kept thinking, “what moment in the Bible is similar to this?” I thought about the Israelites who had just been taken out of slavery, lost their homes, and went out into the wilderness. They had walked away from everything and now they were with their kids in the wilderness and they didn't know what they were doing. So I was reading in Exodus and it says, “then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.”
This is what I have for you today. Number one, the thing that can never be taken from you. The thing that can never be taken from you is the gospel. It is the gold that we possess. Some of you are listening and for the first time you are considering Jesus. I just want to say you are so welcome here. This is not for the strong people. This is not for the people that have been studying their Bibles for a long time. We’re all in the same boat right now. We all need hope. We all need encouragement. This is for all of us. So I want to be simple. I want to tell you simply what it means to follow Jesus. I look back at that moment and it's totally different today because we have the Holy spirit within us. This was the Holy spirit descended upon Israel in a cloud and leading them. We have that cloud in us, those of us that have trusted Jesus. We have that directional cloud to ask, “what do we do today?” I want to give you really clear, simple examples of what that looks like day to day.
This morning I was texting with my friend Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Some of you know her, you've seen her on TV. She was on Fox news not that long ago leading the news and all of us, and then she ends up at home with her kids like the rest of us. This morning when we're texting about what's going on right now, she's like, “you know what I did?” You would think this person who has lived in the front lines of The View and different TV stations, you would think she would have this big thing she was going to do. But she said she went out and bought a breadmaker. She felt like God was telling her to take bread to my neighbors.
I don't believe this is some punishment from God. He knew this was coming and he allowed this to happen. I want to speak specifically to the people that are alone. Because that is a unique struggle. We pray a lot about you, and those of you who are alone in your house whether you are 65 or 80 or 22, whatever your age, my hope and prayer is that you don’t feel alone.
We've got this vision, but whatever place that you find yourself in, it is still possible to obey God and to live out the same mission. That cloud that led Moses is the cloud that will lead us. It's the word of God living in active and powerful to show us how to follow him right now. So what does it look like? It looks like Breadmakers. It does. It looks like saying, “God, what do you want from me today? What do you want for me today? I don't know if I'm going to have enough. I don't know if we have enough.” Certainly I don't know if we have enough toilet paper. There's a beautiful verse that I've loved. It says, “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies are new day by day. Every morning his mercies are new. Great is thy faithfulness.” It's where that hymn came from, if you've ever heard it.
Day by day, every single day, he is going to give us what we need. He doesn't say, “trust me for two years from now”, he says, “trust me for today.” It's why the beginning of the Lord's prayer says, give us this day our daily bread. I think that's how we're going to go through this. How the cloud in Exodus showed them where to go everyday, he will show us where to go and what to do.
The cloud didn't forecast the next year. The cloud didn't say, “this is what's going to happen to the economy.” He showed them where to set up camp. He showed them how to survive and they made the next step. I remember this moment when I was at Kanakuk camps, probably about 15 years old, and Joe White who is the director had taken us down into this cave. I remember it was so dark that you could not see your hand in front of your face. He specifically turned out all the lights just to show us how dark it was. But there was this great hope that there was light coming. Yet you had totally lost your bearings in the cave. It was like an alternate reality. I’ve never been in black darkness like that before. It came to mind this morning - that feeling. It’s the same feeling I have right now. As a leader of my family and an organization, I want to know where God is taking us. But nobody knows and that's not hopeless, because God knows. All he's asking us to do is to obey today to do the best we can with today.
He leads us all in our places to do our next thing. I just believe that the stories of heaven for our generation are being written right now. I think these are our most important days. So we are going to lead well. We were made for this moment. We were made to go through difficulty together. We were made for a struggle. We can go and live this out in a fresh way. It is not a mistake. We have not found ourselves with a God that is impotent. He’s not confused. He has plans for us in it and I can't wait to see what they are.
The IF:Gathering team is dreaming about bringing you IF:TV. We’ll come to you a couple times a week in your homes to encourage you, give you hope, and bring you truth. We’ll teach the word, we’ll have some guests on it with us, and we hope it will bring perspective to this time. Not from us teaching on one side of the camera, but from all of us being together. We want you to be a part of it. We’re believing in this moment for the church. We're believing in this moment for us. We’re believing souls will be saved through this. I love you guys, and I’m with you in this, and I’m so thankful for this community.
