“Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other Isaiah 45:22
I recently had a discussion with my daughter about how COVID-19 has affected our country. All countries in the world had to deal with this global pandemic, of course, and I suspect that each culture was affected a bit differently. I do know that in the United States, the COVID crisis uncovered some deep faults in our structure that were just below the surface, ready to be revealed.
I told my daughter that I think that stress reveals fault lines. Just like a building, when it is under the stress of weather, erosion, earthquakes- whatever- the structural faults of the building will be exposed under stress. Often, those failures are spectacular.
We too have cultural, physical, political, spiritual and mental health fault lines in our system. When our system was put under the stress of COVID, those faults were exposed. We saw a physical crisis unfold to be sure, but we also saw spiritual and political systems fail under the stress.
Our mental health crisis of isolation and depression was exposed by the pandemic. We saw dramatic increases in suicides and other mental health disorders. Our political system too was stressed to the point of breaking. Our spiritual weaknesses became all too apparent when we saw the hopelessness of many. Unfortunately, many people turned to political solutions for a spiritual problem.
I will talk more about this in future blogs. The principle is this- when stress hits a system, the faults will begin to be revealed. Let’s make sure that we know that the remedy for spiritual problems is turning to God and humbly seeking his hand.
Prayer: Lord, help us to use crises in life to reveal our need for you, Amen.
Reflections of a Counselor 