“What is God saying in this season?”

It was a quick text my sister sent off to me at the start of all of the shut downs due to the Coronavirus. Without hesitation I replied, “He wants to know where our confidence comes from.”

It is a bizarre world we are in at this moment. There are things that we thought were constant and would always be there (our jobs, our livelihoods, our lattes on our morning commute), that are being shaken down to a simplistic way of living. Many of us are working from home and have had to pivot in ways never imagined to adapt to an almost immediate turn of events. 

And these large scale world events will have ramifications for years to come. We don’t even know how far reaching these effects truly are. There are uncertainties we will face coming out of the other side of this. One thing remains the same, our unshakeable God. 

Perhaps we didn’t see this coming, but God did. Perhaps we were blindsided by a sudden loss, but God knew it was there, and God was and is there in the midst of it. He hasn’t stepped away from being master and commander of the universe to let it all unravel, He is walking through this with each one of us. 

As I was in the back yard with my toddler son on a particularly blue skied day, my son laid down. He said “mommy dees” which is translated to come and sit beside me mom. I followed my adorable dictator’s demands and laid down beside him and we stared up into the endless blue. In that moment, I felt the eye of God fixed directly on me, as though God was zoomed out on google earth but then scrolled in to show me, “I’m looking right at you” and then, in the sweetest moment, God also showed me that his eye is trained on each one of us like that. As we worry and run out to buy more needless toilet paper, God has his google earth eye trained right on you, your circumstance, and He is with you through this shaky time. He is the God who sees you (Genesis 16:13).

These are certainly uncertain times, and I don’t have assurances.  But I have the one that gives me assurance. The things I thought were my safety net are no longer. The people I hold dear are further apart, and it takes a video chat to talk to them. If I think too much on it my mind starts to unravel at the enormity of it all. I find myself stopping the thought-train before it gets derailed and clinging to the verse from Isaiah 26, 

“You keep him (or her in this case) in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because [s]he trusts in you.” (Isaiah 26:3)

This verse brings comfort and a reminder that our confidence, our assurance, comes from God. 

Reading further, 

“Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD is an everlasting rock.” (Isaiah 26:4)

So, during this strange moment of history, take the instruction from my son, “dees”. Look up to the big blue sky, or turn to your quiet place. In all of the chaos, in all of the uncertainty, in all of the fear, anxiety, grief and overwhelm, the God who sees you, sees you. He sees where you are right now. He is ready to take those feelings and replace them with His peace that surpasses all understanding. 

Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.