The newspapers, news, media of all types are full of the corona virus. Panic has ensued around the world. Businesses have dropped their hours, their services, and their employees. Travel has been diminished to a point of locking the world out and us in. The stock marked plummets like a man without a parachute. Stockers and hoarders strip the markets of daily supplies, forcing people to go without necessities in an “every person for themselves” manifestation of selfishness.

We show and easily put on display where our hearts are by our actions. Don’t touch becomes don’t greet. Social distancing becomes alienation and failure to care for one another. Responsibility in handling the possible exposure to an illness becomes an isolation, which contains elements of rejection toward others and dying compassion for other sufferers. Pastors often teach that what is in us will show when we are under stress. Is this wrong — no.

All of us suffer from the limits of humanity and the need for self. It is not that these temptations are in us or part of us, it is how we choose to face them, deal with them. We can see ourselves in scripture and choose to behave the way we wanted our Bible counterparts to behave. God is with us. We are not alone. I say, because I struggle with all of this – “I am not alone!”

The Israelites were amazing people. Their lives were filled with both miracles and terrible challenges. They left Egypt after having been rescued, miraculously by God. Soon they were at the Red Sea in a total panic. The sea before them and the Egyptian army behind, and them sandwiched right in the middle. This same pattern of miracle and crisis, rescue and disaster followed them all the way into the promised land.

The Israelites became panicked every time they hit a disaster and celebrated every time they were rescued. Somehow – they were only okay when their circumstances were okay. That is where they missed the greatest opportunity. They were looking to God for His provision only (His hand instead of His heart – as the preachers say). They had the availability of a profound relationship with God all the time, every moment of every day. They felt they couldn’t live without ________ (fill in the blank {toilet paper}). They didn’t go to God except when they had a profound need. Yet, He was there all the time, available, desiring a deeper relationship with His people.

I see myself like the Israelites in their situations. I want to write a new script. I want to seek God all the time, not just when there is trouble. Recently, before all the virus crazy, I was online looking at my finances. I was happy seeing that I was able to retire because it had seemed impossible for most of my life and career.

Quietly, inside, I felt the nudge of inner revelation. “Do you trust in the nest egg or Me?” I immediately saw that I was looking to my physical circumstances. I began thinking of all the times I was up against the wall and felt like I wouldn’t make it. I could list many of those events here, but you would be reading all day. I arrived at my old age with a nest egg and retirement because He had given it to me. I had survived innumerable catastrophes because He had carried me through so many Red Seas that I should have been convinced that puddles would part when I walked by. It would be a shame to my life and a very generous Lord to fail to trust Him now.

I have as much reason to trust Jesus as the Israelites did after their miraculous deliverance from Egypt and all the other major events of their journey. God has been as involved in my life and the lives of those around me as He was in their lives. I write this post to remind myself that I want to choose Him instead of my situations, just like I wanted the Israelites to do. I want to learn from my mistakes and theirs. God really is faithful.

God can bring a cure to any situation. However, if He does or doesn’t, I want to do what I wanted for the Israelites. I want to walk with Him and love Him because of Who He is and what He has been to me through my life. I want to appreciate Him now because He has spent my lifetime proving His love and faithfulness. As a savior and friend, He won’t fold in this crisis. I don’t want to fold toward Him. I am confident that, no matter what it looks like, I/we have not been abandoned. He is closer than our next prayer. He is still worthy of praise and thanksgiving, no matter how bad it may seem.