How was your experience during the coronavirus pandemic? Mine was relatively easy. My sisters and mother and I did not leave the house for eight months, but I did not live in either constant fear or interminable boredom, and no one close to my family died of Covid. We had a reliable income, so we always had enough. There were difficulties and changes, but God provided and brought us through with significantly less pain and worry than some experienced.
But recently, I heard a different Covid story. The government here in Peru had the power during the pandemic to completely quarantine everyone in the country. People weren’t allowed to leave their homes except to buy groceries and for medical emergencies. That meant that most had to depend on their savings for needs such as food, rent, and electricity. This spelled out trouble for a hairdresser in our church: she had no income because people could not go to her salon and no way to know if the pandemic would be over before the money she did have ran out.
So what did she do? With so much pressure on her, surely she did not stay at home worrying that her savings would be drained and she would have nothing to live on!
No. She did not do that.
She stayed at home not worrying that her savings would be drained and she would have nothing to live on.
She recognized that she had no control over her situation – but that she was in the hands of the One who did. And He provided for her. I don’t know how, and I don’t know if she does, either, but He did.
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Psalm 139 show God’s omniscience. He knows all, past, present, and future. Verse 4 says, “Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.” He knows what will come in our lives, and He prepares us to face every circumstance. But He doesn’t put in all the work of getting us ready for something and then leave us, assuring us we’ll figure it out; He helps us during our situations. He knows our needs – what we really need, not what we think we do – and provides for them.
So many times we unconsciously decide that God can’t take care of something, irrationally believing that just the act of worrying helps us somehow. But according to verse 23, we can tell God our worries. And when we do that, as Philippians 4:6-7 says, we experience His care and peace. We learn to trust Him. I’ve wondered for a long time what trusting God means, the process of how to do it. I am still unsure of how to answer those questions. All I know is that over time, as we seek God and desire to trust Him, we get better at it. Trust is one of those miraculous things we can’t understand or fully experience apart from God. To trust, ironically, we must trust. We must trust that though we do not understand our situation or have any control over it, God is sovereign and loves us.
Pray that God would open you up to the trust He desires you to have. Pray that when hardship comes, you would place your hope in Him and simply obey Him, knowing that He will accomplish what is right. If you know anyone going through a hard time now, pray that they also would encounter that trust – and the rest that comes with it.