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Have you thought about the fact that COVID might be God’s plan?  I’m not saying it is; I’m just bringing up another side of the coin.

God sent plagues to Egypt to force the Israelites to leave.  He sent the flood, He allowed Satan to torment Job, He allowed Daniel to be put in a lion’s den, He sacrificed His own son to change the world.  There is a side of God we need to look long and hard at.

Daniel 7:23 “Thus he said: ‘As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces.” 

In Daniel 2:44 “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.  It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,”.

I watched the movie “Pleasantville” and the Writer/Director would have you believe that committing sinful acts, makes the world more colorful and a better place.  Americans are looking at a lot of things backwards these days.

Most preaching today states “God wants us to be happy, God wants us to be prosperous.” But does He really?  I know He wants us happy, but does He want our kind of happiness, or His kind?

For those of you who know me, know I have another entire household in my attic.  My husband has his things that he does not want to throw out, and I have mine.  What is it about stuff that has this pull on us?  The LA Times tells us that the average American home has 300,000 items, and one out of ten Americans rent offsite storage.  Americans spend 1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods – as in items we don’t need.

Luke 12:15 tells us “And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

I think COVID is a way of waking a lot of us up.   We are wasting our life acquiring stuff, instead of investing into the kingdom of God.

In Luke 12: 18-21, Jesus tells the parable of the rich man.  The rich man ask himself “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?  Paraphrasing, He says he will build larger barns to store his grains and goods, (aka “stuff”).  He then tells himself he will eat, drink and be merry.”  “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, (which means he’s going to die!), and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”  ^21 “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

God is saying that if we are so busy collecting money, material items, etc., we are not doing what God wants us to do, and we can’t lay riches up in heaven.

If COVID has taught me anything, it is that there is nothing that important on earth.  We need to see the world as fleeting because it is.

The scripture in Daniel said the world as we know will someday be in pieces and God will give us a new earth.

In Revelation 21 – “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

Are you ready for the new world?

Karen Y. Stevens is Executive Director at Meals on Wheels