I recently spoke with a good friend who has been a pastor for many years both in this country and abroad. He is now retired but still actively involved in a church and he told me about an article he wrote for his church newsletter in which he reflects on the crisis caused by the pandemic. He has kindly given me permission to reproduce it here with some light editing. I will post it in three parts, the first follows...

If the current situation has its inconveniences and hardship, positively it affords us time to read, meditate and reflect on God's written Word. Undoubtedly He has much to say to us in providence. Things do not just happen. God has purpose in everything according to His eternal decrees. It would be unwise to jump too hastily to unwarranted conclusions, yet the thought cannot be avoided that elements of judgement on the world are present, as are aspects of chastisement in relation to Christians. It is a time for soul searching. How do we match up to what the Lord Jesus requires of us? A perusal of the letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, in Revelation chapters two and three would prove most instructive and salutatory. So often we find ourselves approving what we read, but end up doing nothing about it. We can be so set in our ways that though we concur with the instructions of Romans 12:1-2*, there seems to be little 'renewing of the mind', and even if we consider that we are not being conformed to the world, our clinging on to ways of thinking and doing that are so evident among us can be just as harmful. Are we afraid to question God on such matters? Maybe the very thought disturbs us. However, there is ample evidence in the Scriptures of such openness before the Lord. Several Psalms could be cited as could the prophets, notably someone like Habakkuk. Lots of questions and complaints: Why Lord? How Lord? But never in rebellion against God, rather in research of the answers which He alone can provide and which He only can divulge as and when He sees fit. There is nothing of pious platitudes with these servants of the Lord. They are not relying on clichés to express themselves. They know God; they commune with Him and they enquire of Him and pray to Him in down-to-earth terms. So often we preoccupy ourselves with what we must do that we veer towards a sanctification by works. We really ought to be obsessed with Who He is and from that knowledge will flow our activities. The Bible is predominantly focussed on the indicatives (who God is and what He is like) of God's revelation of Himself and such discovery and knowledge issue in the imperatives (what we should believe and how we should live) of His Word.

* Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (NIV)