I don’t understand why Covid-19 has become a political hill to die on nor do I understand why SOOOOOO many people are so selfish about how they interact with others when it comes to vaccines, masks, shelter in place, quarantining when sick or the like. It chaps my hide in ways I can’t really express—not being just because people I love have been affected, mind you, but because the Jesus in me screams with compassion at the possibility of somebody else needlessly suffering just because I could have waited to eat out or PUT ON A MASK to go eat out.

The blatant selfishness astounds me because: THE VERY People who talk stuff about COVID are the ones who lack compassion and yet will have their hand out to get every drop of mercy available in their time of need. 😐 These are the ones lying on the name of the Lord out of the motives of their own dark hearts but calling it faith when it’s really pride. These are the ones who mock the sick and shame the fearful and concerned. These are the ones denying the existence of disease, as though God didn’t create science right along the time He set the heavens in motions and told humanity to subdue the earth and tasked Adam with the first job which was taxonomy.

Listen up henh. Cuz I didn’t come to argue about who is right or wrong or even disparate Covid deniers and scoffers. I want to talk to you about GRACE. Mercy. God’s love. That’s why this blog exists.

See, I thank God for His protection; Psalm 91 and Psalm 27 and Proverbs 18 is in full effect in my life. And, I also pray mightily for those who have not been in my position but who have walked in the valley of the shadow of death, some never to return.

But I ALSO pray for those who are foolish and unkind and unthinking when it comes to other people. I don’t have a choice, even though I find them to be quite stupid. I don’t have a choice even though I find them to be quite irritating. They don’t deserve any mercy or grace at all in my opinion—but who am I that God has been mindful of me? And so I HAVE to remember HEAVILY how I don’t deserve God’s grace and mercy EITHER, that Jesus REALLY IS for everybody (even people that I find to be downright insufferable and hatefilled and terrible witnesses of the gospel). It is remembering how unworthy I am of His love (that He so liberally pours onto me) that keeps me from saying what I REALLY want to say to some of you. It’s the idea of His everlasting mercy that helps me to pray for these kind of people instead, with the faith that kindness might bloom in the concrete of their dark heart and that death might continue to pass over them and their kin even as I lose some of my own.

They don’t deserve that prayer. But neither did I before COVID, during it, and even when it’s gone—and people prayed for/are praying/will pray for me. So I keep before me what is pleasing to the Lord. I pray for them despite the fact that I think they ought to be punched in the eyeballs and COVID SPRAYED in their hateful face so they can see how those who have died from it felt as they drew their last breath—so you know what it’s like to want to live they death closes in on them… so that maybe compassion might finally be made complete in them, even if it’s just for their selfish little self.

That’s harsh, hanh?

But it’s WHY I am GRATEFUL to God in Christ Jesus for the ways that He has loved me into a desire to be forever submitted to HIS way and HIS process and HIS heart posture and not my own. It’s why I LABOR into his rest, where the fruit of the spirit is my portion to eat and be filled with righteousness for His namesake. I stand in AWE of God’s GOODNESS for He is truly GOOD, and HIS MERCY endures forever while my mercy could never. So I love from within HIM. I don’t have a choice; I am a wretch undone and without Christ? I am just like the people I find to be so undeserving in this hour. My weakness shows how perfect He is.

God’s grace is sufficient. I think I told y’all that before.

I’m praying for you all: all you who disparage and patronize and say hurtful things without considering all the people who really have lost their loved ones to the effects of this virus and those who survived but will never be the same. I pray that God’s marvelous light which is Christ Jesus shine so bright that it brings you to your knees, knocked off your high horse like the rest of us so that you can choose willingly the God of our salvation for yourself rather than your own way. I pray that your pride be lifted and the eyes of your understanding be made open. That you SEE GOD in the beauty of His holiness: which is His compassion, His heart turned ever toward us, His loving kindness, his everlasting love, His enduring mercy, and Himself extended to us despite our shame.

It’s literally the only way that the offense and sorrow of watching the hatefulness sweep our land is taken from my mouth. These prayers are my repentance: me turning from my own wicked ways, humbling myself, seeking God’s face so that He can heal this land, my Land.

May His glory be revealed to men in me. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth (Adam-in me) as it is in Heaven. Amen.