I’d like to share an encouragement I sent to the missionaries in our region a while back, I hope you as well will find it encouraging during a time when we seem to be surrounded by discouraging news: 

And Our Lives Today

As we look forward, there’s constant chatter of a “new normal”. These words are usually seasoned with tones of resignation, grief and disappointment. They just don’t taste right when paired with anticipation or optimism (unless you’re a producer of masks or provide online meeting platforms).  Still, I see in the Psalms, the Prophets and throughout scripture how suffering and hope are often pared in ways we wouldn’t anticipate or choose, and like a masterful chef, God brings something unexpected out of peculiar ingredients.  I’ve recently marveled how the 1st century Church in Acts gives us real-life examples of believers, in the midst of Roman occupation and suffering themselves, carry a message of hope to an oppressed and lost world.   We are presented with a time that included sheltering in place (the upper room and meeting in secret in Acts 2 & Acts 12), fleeing persecution, imprisonment, death by stoning (Acts 8-12), the sword and colosseum animals… but at the heart of it all was a Gospel centered confidence that extended beyond the grave. A call of God’s mercy not only to the Jews as it had been for generations, but one that crossed racial and tribal lines. None of this was “business as usual” for the Jewish believers as members of the early church. Prior to the cross, the thought of receiving Gentiles as equals was unthinkable. Still, there was a fresh understanding of the God given continuity that didn’t start with Moses but stretched all the way back to Adam. God’s purposes had not changed since creation, they just weren’t immediately recognized by those who followed Him. Salvation was no longer just for the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. It was literally being poured out on their very Roman oppressors (Acts 10) and the traitorous Samaritans (Acts 8). This was not how the children of Abraham thought it would be. (See Peter’s testimony to the Jerusalem church in Acts 11). Step by step, God faithfully lead the apostles and the church in the direction He had planned from creation, ultimately extending His mercy to every nation, tribe and tongue (Rev 7:9).  

 

As we live through our current unique time and trials, like the early Church we must remember, and find hope in the continuity that has existed throughout scripture and throughout history. And like our forefathers, we are called to step forward in faith and follow God in new, often uncomfortable or even potentially dangerous ways. I encourage you to read Acts in its entirety. Already done so? Then read it again! Prayerfully look for how God addresses and annihilates first century walls of sin, fear, isolation, separation, segregation, exclusion, hopelessness, oppression and racism, using even sickness and death itself to bring His people where He can use them best. His Word and His plan have not changed one iota, but perhaps like the children of Israel, our understanding and attitude on how to follow Him in this “new normal” needs an adjustment. Though we ourselves wouldn’t combine the ingredients of suffering and mercy or even grief and grace on the same plate, our eternal Lord knows how to unite these and so much more for His glory and the eternal good of His people.