The Gift of Covid

Little did I dream, five years ago when I wrote a blog about what it must have been like for the Israelites to live for 40 years “under the cloud,” that I would be living something similar. 

While the Israelites were wandering in the desert, every family had to be ready at any moment to pack up and move. The priests had to be ready to pack up the tabernacle, transport it to the new camping place, and set it up again.

While Covid isn’t the same thing, the sense of being kept hanging has some similarities. Things that used to be predictable no longer are. Can I get in at the hospital to visit a friend? Do I have to wear a mask in the grocery store, or maybe even outdoors? Can I hug someone I haven’t seen in a while? I find myself monitoring what each state is mandating at any given time, wondering when their decisions will also affect us.

The uncertainty of our times is wearing. I’ll admit that. But if it is increasing our dependence on God and our agility for adjusting to whatever he’s about to do next, we can choose to recognize it as a gift. Whether it’s Covid or other trials, God’s goal is for us to learn that our we are not masters of our own fate, and to instead trust his wise mandates.