Sure there’s nothing else for it
A recent conversation about life as we find it under ongoing Covid-19 restrictions went something like this: “We just have to keep going.” “I know, sure there’s nothing else for it.” It struck me that somewhere between those two quite typically colloquial comments is where most of us find ourselves on our better days just now.
As we move out of 2020 into 2021, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is still with us. Even though hope of the return of a greater normality is on the horizon, we still find many everyday things and almost every aspect of our church life different and challenging. We find ourselves ‘living with it’, just keeping going, trying to learn God’s lessons in the waiting. There is nothing else for it! Things are not about to swing back to normal soon and, more positively, we have in fact got better at learning to live differently and finding ways of working within restrictions even if we don’t like them.
Covid-19 as our current thorn in the flesh
Reflecting on this place in which we find ourselves at present caused me to recall Paul’s thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12 verses 7-10. There the Apostle recalls wrestling with God about his circumstances as follows:
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Much ink has been spilt down the years about what Paul was referring to when writing about his thorn in the flesh. We just don’t know. But we do know he had prayed about it – in fact pleaded with the Lord to take it away, but he chose not to do so. Instead, God taught him the lesson that his power is never more fully experienced and expressed than in the peculiarities of ongoing pain and its exposure of our weakness.
I’m sure many of us have prayed and pleaded with God for a speedy end to the current pandemic and its devastating impact on so many people near and far, as well as on our church life. But as yet, it is not to be. We can expect to continue to experience its ‘torment’ for a little bit longer.
Empowered to settle in for the winter
So, if it is not God’s will to bring current circumstances to an end soon, don’t we need to seek his grace and empowerment as we settle in for the months ahead? Mightn’t that look like ‘living with it’ for a little while longer? Learning not to be resentful about that, but being resilient in God and resourceful in drawing upon his grace in the face of lingering challenges.
Living with it!
January will see the theme ‘living with it’ explored through PCI’s Tides daily devotional as, across four weeks, it opens up aspects of living with present circumstances in our individual lives, church life, worshipping life and lives as God’s witnesses. A series of blogs each Tuesday will explore what it looks and feels like to live with new realities, a new rhythm, new intentionality about what we do and new joy despite the hardship.
A new resource, WHOLE: Living well as the people God has made us to be, offers six sessions to open up conversation about a biblical approach to personal wellbeing - living well as whole people made in the image of God as we seek to follow Jesus in this season of life.
The material covers:-
- Grounded wellbeing: Hopefulness – Romans 8:18-28
- Social wellbeing: Supported – Proverbs 27:17; Ecclesiastes 4:12; Hebrews 10:24-25
- Physical wellbeing: Strengthened – 1 Kings 19:1-9
- Mental wellbeing: Focused – Philippians 4:4-9
- Emotional wellbeing: Steadied – Philippians 4:10-13
- Active wellbeing: Carried along – Hebrews 11:13-16
Following the pattern of the previous Unprecedented material, the WHOLE resource offers a short, sharp framework for groups, whether gathering in-person or digitally. Material facilitates participants in catching up with each other pastorally, reflecting on what God is saying in this moment and responding with renewed faith in him and following in his ways for their lives.
Finding our all in God
John Newton, author of Amazing Grace and famous former slave trader turned preacher of the freedom to be found in Christ, penned a lesser known hymn based on Paul’s experience of living with his thorn in the flesh. It contains his own reflection on how God chose to work in a similar way in painful circumstances he had to learn to live with. Maybe it contains a crucial message for us as we enter this next season of life and ministry, reminding us that when the Lord allows us to experience ongoing hardship and pain it is only that we might better know his comfort and grow closer to him.
I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.
‘Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.
I hoped that in some favoured hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“‘Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.
These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”
Visit the Refined section of the PCI website to sign up to receive Tides daily devotional, view weekly blogs and find out more details about the WHOLE resource by clicking here.