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"Suffering becomes
beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not
through insensibility, but through greatness of mind."
- Aristotle
"Crises are challenges, not calamities." Guy
Verhofstadt, former Belgium Prime Minister and coordinator of Brexit said. Some believe he and his comrades were the instigators of both a
crisis and a calamity. A CALAMITY is an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster. Unfortunately, a lot of the calamities in the world are
the result of our sinful, human nature. We vie and struggle to gain political and economic power. We fail to steward our environment. We do not care for the most vulnerable among us. We want to over-rule God in our decision making, and we try to make Him obsolete with scientific theories that merely explore and explain things He has created that are too high for us. In this season, God is exposing and weaning us from the love of this world.
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"Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16For
the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. 17And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever." 1 John 2:15-17)
"The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." (KJV)
That's really all that is in the world. This is revealed in calamities like the one we're facing. We see the result of our greed, disobedience to authority, and selfishness. We're watching man's inhumanity to man. The things upon which we've historically propped up our lives are in jeopardy: the prestige of work, our savings and retirement plans, experiences of travel, sporting and entertainment events, etc. The things we took for granted are now not available to us:
hanging out with friends and extended family, enjoying co-workers,
heading to church and other forms of community building. We've discovered what's really important. The good thing is that history tells us that calamities do not last forever and prayerfully we can and will course-correct during and after this one. In the
meantime...king David was fleeing for his life from king Saul, he asked
God for mercy and declared that he would hide and rely on the LORD. This is a prayer we ought to pray in this season. "Be merciful
unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea,
in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these
calamities be overpast."
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