How to Have an Eternal Perspective

The thing about life-changing events is that they should turn our hearts and our thoughts to things that are eternal. What can often happen (at least in my case, hopefully not yours) is that it turns our thoughts even further away from spiritual things and more towards the things of this world.

I can come up with a few personal examples and experiences of difficult times spiritually/emotionally/physically that I have either turned more into myself or asked GOD to intervene. Whether it was when we made the decision to move to Haiti, moved the kids away from where they used to live and the people who were mistreating them, the time I was sued in Haiti, when I had to leave a church position to move to another, and numerous other examples. Here is the question I have to ask:

Why is it so easy to trust in ourselves over GOD?

It does not make sense. Knowing what we know about ourselves and knowing what we know about GOD, it is one of the most illogical things we do as followers of Christ. Something happens and we think we have the skills and answers to get through it.

As you probably can guess, this topic has come up today because of Covid-19 and what the world is going through right now. It is a totally and completely unprecedented worldwide event, and as followers of Christ we have to figure out how we are going to handle it. Here are some of the options we have:

1. We can allow our fear to take over our lives.
2. We can place our faith and our trust in doctors and in the scientific community.
3. We can focus all of our time on "social distancing" practice.
4. We can believe it is all political and side one way or the other based on our preexisting political disposition.

There are plenty of options, but the there is one option that only makes sense. We can trust that GOD has a plan even in this. We may not understand it, and we may not comprehend why any of it is happening, but we can take an eternal perspective.

There are thousands of people dying each day, many of them outside of a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. My guess is that many people are ready to listen to the Good News. While as Christians, these types of events can make us focus a little more inward, others who do not know what their eternity looks like have a tendency to focus on the eternal. List to 1 Corinthians 1:18

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

As followers of Christ, are we living like the cross is foolishness and focusing on all of the things that we think we can control? Or are we living like the cross is the power of GOD and serving and helping those who do not know Him in whatever ways we can. 

I know this time is hard, and certain precautions have to be made. But we have the Cross, and the cross is the power of GOD for us. Let's figure out how to live for Him and to focus on the eternal even when it is tough and even when temporal problems seem to abound.