PANDEMIC…If I Would Have Known

IF I WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT A PANDEMIC WAS COMING, I WOULD HAVE…

Have you ever thought about that statement?  If I would have only known, I would have…

Yep, this pandemic (and I could use a few unacceptable adjectives here) took all of us off guard.  But just for fun, let’s try to finish this statement together.  If I would have known that a pandemic was coming, I would have…

• … gathered my grown children and moved them back into my house in January of 2020 so I could quarantine with someone other than my husband.
• … stocked up on all the essentials like toilet paper, Lysol and ice cream!
• … bought stock in some random company called Zoom.
• …bought a large supply of stretchy pants and xl t shirts.
• …gone on a crash diet immediately following Christmas.
• …shaved my head to watch my hair grow for 8 months.

There are times in our lives we want to know what is ahead of us. If I knew, I would make changes to avoid the obstacles or at least prepare myself.

But other than having a huge stash of dried rice and bags of beans (our son in Boston warned us it was coming), my husband and I were not prepared for this.

We often ask God to tell us the end of the story or at least to let us know what is around the corner.  But truthfully, if we knew, would we be anymore prepared?  And honestly, if we knew the ending of many of our stories, we would be frightened even more. 

I’m going to tell you a story today about a man in the Bible who knew the future, but his knowledge of the future didn’t change a thing.

It still happened!

This story takes place in the book of Genesis with the man Abram, which most of us know as Abraham.

Abram was tired and a little ticked at God. To prove God’s covenant with Abram, God told Abram to bring Him a sacrifice. Abram grabbed some critters and laid them on the altar to sacrifice to God. As Abram was admiring his sacrifice, this happened…

“Then the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.” Genesis 15:11

(Note that I will write another blog on this one…it’s way too good for just one blog!)

What the heck! What just happened? God and Abram were getting along nicely, and all the love was in the air, then bam! Some ugly “birds of prey” came and attacked Abram’s beautiful sacrifice.

Let’s stop here ladies!

Think back to January of this year. What were you doing?

• Christmas was over, the decorations had finally come down, the New Year had been celebrated and resolutions are now forgotten.  Life was moving once again!
• February rolls around, kisses were exchanged for Valentines Day, there was some background noise from China, but overall life was good.
• Then came March, the “birds of prey” swept in to take away our goodness in life. I don’t know about you, but I feel as though those birds are still swarming. I want to take out my BB gun and shoot down every one of them.

These “birds of prey” were like an omen telling us that something dreadful was going to happen. I don’t know about you, but I missed the birds flying around my house warning me that a pandemic was coming!

Then God spoke to Abram in a dream telling him the story of the Israelites (this was the nation yet to be born to Abram) becoming slaves in Egypt and escaping and eventually returning back to the land of Canaan. Even though this story wasn’t going to take place for hundreds of years, God was telling Abram the future and that something horrible was going to happen.

But God had this!

It was all a part of His plan!

Then God finished with these two things…

• Abram, you will die and “be buried at a good old age.” (Genesis 15:15)
• And after your death, all the Israelites will come home to the land of Canaan. But not yet “for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached it’s full measure.” (Genesis 15:16). 

That seems like such a random way to finish this dream for Abram.  In the future, this is all going to happen, but not for a long time because “the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached it’s full measure.” The Amorites were evil people who lived in the hills of Canaan.

Look at the flow of this story…

• Abram and God were having a good moment at the altar of sacrifice (our January of 2020)
• The “birds of prey” swept down to take away that good moment (our March of 2020)
• God shows Abram the future and what the “birds of prey” were going to attempt to steal
• Then God promises Abram that He will make it turn out for good and the Israelites will come back home to Canaan
• BUT NOT YET…the story has not reached it’s “full measure”.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not saying that these scriptures from Genesis are prophesy for us in this pandemic. But there are parallel lessons here for us to absorb.

Our life as we knew it was taken away.  This pandemic has taken lives not just by death, but by emotion and relationships. We have struggled to maintain our sanity within ourselves and within those we love. Everyone has a “pandemic” story that has affected their lives.

But the same thing that God was trying to say to Abram in his dream, He also wants us to hear loud and clear…

I AM IS STILL ON MY THRONE!

God was not taken off guard in March of 2020 and is still not taken off guard today, 8 months later.  I’m confident that each of us has begged God at some time to take this away. But I believe God is saying “it has not reached it’s full measure. There is more I need to do.”

Do you know why God said that the sin of the Amorites had not reached full measure?

Because the Israelite nation needed to defeat the Amorites (that was a part of God’s plan) and the Israelite nation had not been born yet!

God used the story of the Israelites escaping Egypt and entering back into the promised land of Canaan for more than just a good bedtime story for us to tell our children.  He used that story to show us what a great God He is and to draw us to him.  If the Israelites had not been taken captive, we would have never seen the Red Sea part.  We would never be able to read about the Israelites as the entered the promised land of Canaan and defeated the giants (the Amorites).

We need God to show up!

We need God to show up in a great way!

We need the Red Sea story and the story of the giants!

We need these because we need to believe that God is bigger than us!

We need this virus to believe that God is bigger than us!

We need this pandemic to say, “My God is in control!”

We need this virus to show the others around us that we have a faith that is grounded in a living God! We need to show others the truth of a Living God!

As you shoo away the “birds of prey”, remember that God has had a plan all along!