COVID-19 Series: #1—What’s God got to do with it?

(19 Pastoral Thoughts On COVID-19)

“I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:6–7).

No person or church or nation can rise higher than their thoughts of God. In our current global crisis of the Coronavirus pandemic, this thought cannot be too far away from our minds: “Has God sent this as a plague upon humanity?” The politically correct answer is, “No, because he is a loving God. He cannot cause the kind of global panic, suffering and death that we are seeing from this pandemic.” However, the biblically correct answer is, “Yes, because he is a God who makes well-being and creates calamity.” God is in sovereign control of all things—including viruses.

We must be careful not to pick and choose aspects about God that we are most comfortable with. When God gave Satan permission to destroy everything Job possessed, all Job was told was that a great wind brought down the house in which his children were and they all perished. Yet, Job said in response to all this, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away." So, even today with this COVID-19, what’s God got to do with it? The answer is, “Everything!” That is where we must start. It is not the politically correct answer but it is the biblically correct one. We may not have all the answers to questions related to this, but if we are truly believers then all our thoughts about COVID-19 should begin with God in the picture as the chief player. Is that how you are thinking about this?

“Sovereign Ruler of the skies,

Ever gracious, ever wise;

All my times are in Thy hand,

All events at Thy command.”

—John Ryland (1753–1827)