This morning I unlocked the door of an empty church building and locked it behind me.  It is a Sunday morning. The doors should be open and people should be greeting each other and looking forward to a morning of worshiping our God together.  But that’s not what is happening. I unlocked the door of an empty church building so I could deliver something to my husband, the only occupant of the building, as he worked with technology that was not cooperating so he could be of some encouragement to those who would normally be gathering in the auditorium – aka: getting a video uploaded to the internet. 

As I locked the door behind me I was reminded of how important that action has become. While it was considered prudent previously, it wasn’t until about a year ago, due to the ever increasing actions of evil people around us, that it has become to most of us an essential security procedure. We lock the building so no one who wishes to do us harm can enter.  

Today there is another reason for locking the door.  In the interest of keeping us safe from covid-19 our local government has determined that we should all stay home.   It just hit me as I was making the delivery to my husband that a year ago, in the name of safety, we began locking evil persons out of our building.  Today, in the name of safety, we are locking our brethren out of our building.

There can be no explanation for this except that Satan is doing his best to deter us from serving our God.  No, the building is not the church and, yes, we can worship God anywhere. While Satan can deter us, he cannot stop us. He must not stop us! We have to stay diligent in our devotion to God and our love for each other.  

I am reminded of the Israelites as they waited at the foot of Mt Sinai for Moses.  They had just witnessed the most awe inspiring miracles: crossing the Red Sea, Egyptian army destroyed, water from a rock, etc.  After all of these wonderful events, they had been instructed to sit and wait. As they sat and waited at the foot of Mt Sinai they began to lose their enthusiasm.  They waited 40 days. That’s about 6 weeks. Think about it. For 6 weeks they had nothing to do. They did not know what was going to happen from day to day. They were able only to sit and wait.  What was the result of this state of waiting and inactivity? They began to lose interest in the God who had just shown them His power, the God who had just saved them from slavery and was promising them a land of their own.  Just 6 weeks to not just complacency but to complete denial that God exists. They demonstrated their unfaithfulness by creating their own god, the golden calf, to worship.  

 It was just a month or so ago that Covid-19 was something we heard about occasionally on the news.  Our economy was booming. Unemployment was at an all time low. We were going about our busy lives doing what we chose to do when and where and with whom we chose to do it.  Those of us who have devoted our lives to Christ were worshiping Him together without a thought that someday this might all end. Life was good. Like the Israelites as they left Egypt, we were excited about our future.  

Here we are a couple of weeks into our current state of isolation from our brethren and from mankind in general..  How is our faith holding up? Where will we be in 6 weeks? Are we beginning to think that it is all too hard? That it would just be easier to live the life we used to live?  There was a point that the Israelites wanted to turn back to Egypt. They wanted to go back to what they knew, where they had grown up, what made them comfortable. Even though there was no future for them there, it was comfortable. 

.  We must not ever desire to be comfortable.  Being a Christian is anything but comfortable as the world defines comfort.  Our faith must be strong enough to endure whatever Satan throws our way. Following God requires strength and courage.  Today it is isolation in our homes for an undetermined amount of time. Tomorrow it will be something else. I pray that we all can look to these days as times of renewing our hearts and minds.  As we are forced to discover what is really essential in life that we always look to God as our guide. That, while we may be forced to have a smaller circle of human connection that we pray for each other and reach out as we have the ability and that we look forward to the day we can all greet each other once again with a “holy kiss”.  

 2 Timothy 1:7  For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Exodus 32:1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods  who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

Numbers 14:2-3 And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!  Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Hebrews 3:13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Isolating in Sinton,
Diana Dow