What is God Doing Now?

What is God Doing Now?

(Long Read Alert) 

These are tough times. Not just physically but emotionally and psychologically. They are even tough times socially and putting out opinions isn't anything easy. Writing this isn't easy on me and I hope I don't lose friends. It isn't for arguments but for solutions. 

But IF it's the truth, it will help those genuinely looking for solutions and answers and return to restore those things that cankerworms and caterpillars have eaten.

Growing up and being raised on the Bible, I had a very funny relationship with the Scriptures. There are parts I would read over and over, there are parts I won't touch with a long pole. This isn't because of unbelief really but because of fear. They make me rather uncomfortable.

My favorite was the book of Exodus and other early books of the Pentateuch, but not Leviticus I would enjoy the stories in Numbers, but not the numbering. I cherished the suffering of the children of Israel in Egypt and their deliverances, the wars, and their victories up to the stories of Joshua and the conquests.

Of course, I never pitched myself with the losing sides. I never saw myself as a little innocent Egyptian boy, enjoying the wealth and the slavery services of a conquered group of visitors, I never saw myself as the little boy suffering the plagues and seeing all the deaths or losing my father in the red sea as he and other soldiers pursued these runaway slaves.

Even the plagues that happened within the children of Israel didn't move me, I was on the side of Moses and not on the side of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. I wasn't on the side of the children of Jericho, of course I would have died with them, and I wasn't a member of the house of Achan. These stories were 'sweet' because of the side I was, I never considered the people on the other side.

In my relationship with my Bible, I won't read the book of Job, to me it was 'R' rated, that was horror and violence in one movie. I won't read the book of Revelations, full of scary things. And I won't read Galatians 5, and any such verses that tried to put the responsibility of living right on me, they judge me and why should I be judged? Of course, I was just maturing. 

It took maturing to break the habit of selective reading. And when I did, I began to see God differently. God is a good God, but He also demands responsibility, and He is a God of justice and judgment who is not to be taken for granted. He can actually be righteously terrible in judgment. 

Under the circumstances we are in right now, in finding solutions, we need to know where God is on this. If Job had fallen sick, probably letting his shield of faith down briefly and Satan's arrow hit him, he could quickly deal with it, putting the devil down through the provisions of redemption. Satan had come to steal, to kill and to destroy and the eternal life of God will deal with it by the authority in name of  the Life Himself, Jesus Christ, the Lord. 

But it is a different case when Job started losing all of his family members and all of his wealth and his life became something else. The question would have been, what happened to the edge God had put around Job and not why did Job let his shield of faith down? This is more than Job and his impeccable righteousness. God is involved in what's happening to Job. 

If I have a flat tire on the Third Mainland Bridge, (the longest and probably the busiest bridge in Africa on a workday), it MAY be Satan trying to hinder me like he did to Paul and the warfare would continue right there as I claim my victory. But if all the vehicles on the bridge on a Monday morning have flat tires, that's something more than the regular, wise men should ask questions and reflect. 

It means, we need to rate issues by its merits to know how to handle it. 

I don't believe a pandemic of the magnitude of covid19 would happen without God knowing about it. I know people are more comfortable with the expression of 'God permitted it' rather than 'God did it'. We believe there's no reason why a good God would do such a terrible thing. But to me, I don't see a difference in God permitting and in Him doing it. 

If you could stop it, even if you didn't plan it, but you didn't stop it, they you're not better than the one who planned it. It is aiding and abetting and every legal system frowns at it. But we know that God gauges the trials and the temptations that comes to us so that we would be able to handle them. He permits only what we can handle, and would even make a way of escape so we can bear them according to 1Corinthians 10:13 so that if we fail, it isn't because we had more than we can handle but because we didn't handle the temptation as we should. 

But why would God permit such a devastation? If we get the answer to that, I'm sure we can get a solution of how we can be saved. 

Ordinarily, I believe God has an edge of protection around the world. He has a program running that must run through. We are heading towards a new heaven and a new earth. So, in spite of man's tendencies of violence, the wickedness of Satan and the eventualities of nature, the world has remained protected by God beyond what man could do. 

Just a big enough asteroid hitting the earth will paralyse it completely. Scientists say it had happened before and it can happen again, the question is why hasn't any of that magnitude hit since the beginning of this era? There is an edge of God around the earth keeping it till His agenda is done. 

So, when something happens that seems to put the world on hold and suspends God's plan for the world, for nations, for territories, for cities, for families and for individuals then, we should ask Him who had put that edge around the world. 

Did this catch Him unawares? I doubt, I believe He's up to something. Can the devil do this to Him and all by himself? I doubt too. I'm almost thinking that Satan himself is in awe right now... Most of his business centres are shut down. If anyone of either God or Satan was caught unawares, it would be Satan, he's the one suffering this more among the two. 

So, what's God doing now? He's receiving people to heaven's bliss, He's healing lots of people infected, He's helping the bereaved come to comfort, He's helping those at the front lines from getting sick or getting into weariness, He's helping nations do the right things to support their people. He is keeping people home with their families and making individuals think deeply about their lives and about God. He is bringing back to us what matters and showing us that we can actually do without those things we are killing ourselves and others over. He's helping scientists find a cure and a solution. 

But can God do this? Yes, He can. It's only because we never pitched ourselves with people like the Egyptians during the 10 plagues, they deserved it, we don't. We never thought about the children of Jericho, who didn't have a Rahab to throw out the scarlet scarf in support of God's people to save her family and friends, the other citizens of Jericho, who didn't make the decisions to shut the Israelites out deserved it, we don't. We never pitched ourselves with those who perished with the flood but with Noah and his family, even if our sins are more than of those who died in the flood, they deserved it, we don't. We never thought of being the family members of Annania and Sapphira who died even in the New Testament, they deserved it, we don't even if we are doing worse than them. We never asked how could God have done what He did to Herod, and we never wondered why He had to kill him in such a horrible manner because we assume he deserved it but we don't. And not pitching ourselves with those people didn't give us a balance perspective of who God is and it has helped to keep people away from the fear of God since they never saw a God who won't be on their side even when not doing well. Some even believe that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. Meanwhile, He did same things in the New Testament too if we read properly. Jesus wept bitterly on Jerusalem and other cities because of the evil coming upon them via the judgment of God, didn't He? Did those things happen or not? Yes, they did but we aren't those people, so we don't know that side of God. And we don't present that side and so people go on thinking their sins have no consequences, yet our message is to help people get saved. Do you get saved without any danger looming? Is there a rescue team without a danger to rescue people from? 

God is a God of judgment and we should be wary of His terrible judgment. It doesn't always happen, the Scriptures say because judgement against evil isn't promptly delivered, so men's heart are set in them to do evil. The Scriptures also said, God is slow to anger, but not that He doesn't have wrath, even if His anger is for a moment. That little moment can be devastating, it'll hurt people and even the 'innocent' and 'righteous' may not easily escape. Is God wicked? He's not, the judge of all the earth won't be unrighteous. A righteous and benevolent judge will still send people to jail or to death, not for wickedness but for justice and the innocent people connected to those so judged will still share it it, how I wish they won't. Besides, our rating of good and bad are always informed by our selfish comforts, if it doesn't pain, then it is good, even if we need the pain to be better! 

The world is apostate and we all know, every serious believer knows. But we don't feel it until we demand justice for a wrong we have suffered. But that justice we seek for ourselves will make some innocent people suffer, it will be painful but what can we do about it?

That's why the way out of the present situation is to ask God to fulfil His purpose quickly and to cut the days of His wrath short in mercy. And He will do so even if Pharaohs' hearts would remain hardened to their own personal destruction afterwards. 

Our jobs as the people of God is to help people see the severity of God and also His love, its not a time to do PR for God, its time to seek Him and to plead and pray for the world. 

I'm sure hearts will fear God again and return unto God. We may be seeing the onset of a spiritual revival and the church, which is the light of the world and the salt of the earth will have to shine this light for the world to see and for the world to run into that light and preserve what remains as the salt that she is. 

It's time we humble ourselves before God, even as the church and seek His face, it's time to repent of our own sins, and return unto God, He will abundantly pardon. 

He will send solutions, both scientific and spiritual and will stop the plague like He stopped them in Egypt and all through the history of plagues in the Bible. He will then restore all that has been lost and bring us back to health and to wealth. 

It's time to let the world see her sin unto repentance and sound the alarm of preparations for the end and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

For the individual believer who has faith in the knowledge of our redemption in Christ, the healing Scriptures and the redemptive promises in Christ haven't been suspended, we can be shielded like the children of Israel were distinguished but we have to shine our light for the world to see what must be done, we have to stand in the gap for the world at this time and intercede in fasting and in praying in humility, and to testify of Christ according to what He said we should do in times of famine, pestilences and persecutions. 

You may not agree with this or with some parts of this, and I can understand, it does not make you my enemy but look sincerely into what I've said and listen to God in your heart for the truth and let's do as God has led us. 

Peace by all means! 

Photo Credit:Geralt/Pixabay