Fearless

Once, Jesus got into a boat with some of His followers. As they crossed a lake, they were caught in a sudden and ferocious storm. The Greek words Matthew used to describe the storm are megas seismos. Even without a history of Greek, I can follow the terminology. Megas is big. Very big. Seismic activity describes earthquakes. From what I could find, seismos is used thirteen other times in the New Testament and always translated earthquake. This was massive storm, big enough to unnerve seasoned fishermen.

Terrified, the disciples woke Jesus, most likely shouted to be heard above the noise of the waves and wind, and said, "Master, we are going to die!"

Jesus replied, "Why are you afraid?" 

Indeed. In the middle of a megas seismos storm, in a little boat, with water sweeping over the sides, with the crashing of the waves and the howling of the wind, with their very lives threatened. The Master was there and that made all the difference. 

Today, amid a tsunami of misinformation, scary statistics, canceled events, quarantines, and a worldwide crisis, Jesus asks, "Why are you afraid?"

Indeed. The Master is still with us and able to calm the storm. It isn't the storm we need to be afraid of. "This isn't eternal," my friend Sheryl Zeiset said. "God help us to fear the things that lethargize the soul more than that which can kill the body." 

Lift your eyes above the waves today, zero in on Jesus, and be fearless.

Picture sourced from Pixabay

C. S. Lewis Weighs In on the Coronavirus

Stores are emptied of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Schools are closed. Events are canceled. Memes are made. Coronavirus is making the kind of history our great-grandchildren will read about in textbooks someday. 

I respect the warnings of our authorities and agree with taking precautions to protect the elderly and immunocompromised. But I also appreciate the balanced views Christians have been presenting, of quarantines providing quality family times, of God using this crisis to shake our view of normal into His view of normal.

Many years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote about living in uncertain days, and his words still hold truth for us--especially if his pint refers to a latte. I know this quote has been circulating recently, but I want to share it here in case you haven't seen it. 

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948)  

Photo sourced from Pixabay

Repetition's Value

Life is a circle.

I haven’t kept track how many

times I have washed the same dishes or

mopped the same floors or laundered the same

clothes. I only know that I often wield my dishrag or

mop and almost daily I cram piles of dirty duds into my

hungry machine. Much of life as a stay-at-home mom feels

repetitive. Today I listened to my second grader recite identical

passages her brother memorized two years ago. Another child is

watching, biding his time until he is big enough to quote Beatitudes

and portions of the Psalms. I teach him the same lessons I instilled in
his siblings: Colors. Numbers. Please. Thanks. Kindness. Obedience.

I could find these endless cycles depressing. Empty or meaningless.

But then I remember that God does the same things, repeatedly.

His promise hangs on repetition: As long as earth remains, day

And night, snow and heat, summer and winter will continue.

Perhaps God created cycles to showcase His promises

and His dependable, enduring, stable character.

My cyclical life becomes my daily hint

of God Himself.