A year ago, when 2020 was still a baby and a virus in China only a vague, faraway story, Hubby and I listened to a podcast from Ransomed Heart Ministries called “The River of Life.” I half-listened while I pieced together a quilt made from old blue jeans, thinking more about gifting my kids with these quilts than on what John Eldredge and his partners were saying.
They spoke about something God had revealed to them during prayer: how a spirit of death was sweeping across the earth. A literal, high-ranking dark spirit who would bring not only physical death, but the end of relationships, projects, businesses, ministries. This spirit would try to convince us we no longer care about our lifelong dreams and goals. That it is time for them to end. That certain friendships—even marriages—can go.
Their conversation sounded a bit mumbo-jumbo, even for a believer like me.
But not anymore.
In a normal year, I might attend one or two funerals. Some years, none. Looking back on 2020, I can easily think of four funerals I would have attended, had we been allowed to hold them. None were from Covid-19. Though the pandemic has not (so far) personally affected my life much more than an inconvenience, we don’t need to look far to see how accurate the podcast was. Lives lost. Economies ruined. Hope destroyed. Hatred, fear, and anger abounding.
The good news, according to these Ransomed Heart guys, is that we are not helpless. Though this spirit is strong, God is stronger. The solution lies in praying the river of life (written about in Ezekiel 47) as a shield all around us. “As you pray this prayer,” Eldredge says, “You will realize the number of areas where this spirit of death has been operating. As you begin to invoke life, the spirit of death backs off.”
Whether you believe this or not, whether you choose to put it into practice or not, you can’t deny we live in tough times—relatively speaking. I say relative, because this planet has known tougher times in the past and will experience tougher times in the future. If you study your Bible, you know that. I can’t guarantee that five years from now, we won’t be saying, “Remember when we thought 2020 was so hard?”
But I can tell you this. No pandemic, no war, no economic or environmental crisis is ever the main story. Pandemics come and go. Wars begin and end. Leaders rise and fall. For a while, they are the biggest story in the news or in the coffee shops or on social media. They inspire creative conspiracy theories, driving wedges between former friends and striking fear into hearts. These events may hold the largest microphone, but they are never the main story.
That title belongs to God. The story of Jesus Christ has always been and always will be THE STORY.
Everything else is periphery. He runs everything from governments to galaxies, and he commands the final word on it all.
A vaccine for Covid-19 brings hope, and that’s good. I will probably get one when my turn comes. But if my turn doesn’t come, I’m okay with that, too. Because my hope does not lie in a vaccine. With or without one, the death rate for humans is still 100%.
My hope lies in the one who will always be the main story.
Because of this truth, it’s possible for you and me to live productive lives, free from fear. Don’t let the enemy of us all convince you there is nothing you can do. When you pray, invoke God’s river of life over your own small kingdom so that it overflows its banks onto your surrounding community. This is how you play your role in the main story.
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