Dear one,
The other morning I awoke with these words flooding my imagination: “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus”, words central to the heart of the Christian faith. Why particularly I awoke with these words, I’m uncertain: perhaps they were a reflection of the thoughts I shared with you previously: “How long, O’ Lord?” or equally, perhaps a reflection of our virus-world.
With regard to that virus-world, from a conversation with a Filipino pastor this morning, I was reminded that only one family member, age 21-59, may leave their home at one time; that the government is loosening a ban on liquor sales; and that, with the new norm, the average operator of a tricycle taxi will now earn $2/day, “hardly enough to support a family.”
So too this morning, an Indian seminary professor shared: “The mutated form of the virus now entering India is twenty times more virile than its earlier form, and will most likely infect twenty million people. We are just beginning to know its impact.” How accurate his speculations, I do not know; but given that the population of India is 1.353 billion, his words seem fully credible.
Thus, given our world—the daily realities we hear, face, and fear—and given my early morning reveries, I then had further pause for thought. If Paul’s ringing affirmation is true:
“If God is for us, … [then] neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (cf. Romans 8:31-9:1);
I do well to carefully ponder his words. As a person of faith, he was also a realist: if it is true: nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, this truth does not negate our experiencing life and death, rulers and powers, heights and depths, or any future occurrence. From his own experience, he observed: “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly” (Romans 8:23); and perhaps even more telling, he confided: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19).
The virus reminds us that our world is fraught with great difficulties and dire consequences—often compounded by our desires and decisions; but Paul (not Pollyanna) would remind us, that the virus cannot separate us from God’s love. I believe Paul.
Still connected,
Stan