God knows the long game

Well, it appears that the pandemic is back. The Covid wards in the hospitals are full, and according to my doctors, these patients are sicker than those in the past. Despite the fact that I have already had the infection, and have been inoculated, my doctors are insisting that I wear my mask and limit my exposure to the public.

What should we do? Do we despair and cry “unfair”, and accuse God of not caring about our well being? Or do we turn to God’s Word to find comfort in our distress?

I find lots of comfort in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, especially chapter two, from which I would like to read a part, from The Amplified Bible.

Here Paul recounts his former life wherein he was rebelling against God and sinning in many ways:

“But God! So rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us, even when we were dead by our own shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ. He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him. For it is by grace – by His favor and mercy which you did not deserve – that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation).”

“And He raised us up together with Him and made us sit down together – giving us joint seating with Him – in the heavenly sphere [by virtue of our being] in Christ Jesus, the Messiah, the Anointed One.”

“For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves – of your own doing, it came not through your own striving – but it is the gift of God;”

I could continue with these wonderful words that Paul wrote as he was inspired by the Holy Ghost. But don’t these words give us comfort?

We cannot understand nor explain why God allows pandemics and other troubles to enter our lives. But we have his clear words that the day will come when these problems will cease, and we will enjoy being in his presence for all eternity. And eternity is much longer than sixty or eighty years here on earth.

So while I take precautions to make sure I don’t get re-infected, I trust in God to see me safely through this imperfect world, and I understand that while I could again get sick, or have other problems in this world, while God is not the cause of these problems, he does allow them to happen. Why, we don’t know, but we do know that he has the long-term solution well in hand and offers this to us purely out of his love and grace, and not conditioned on anything we do, other than just believe his word and trust in his promises.

So we trust God that his long-term answer will eventually take place and accept whatever this evil world has in store for us at this present time.