“It is written, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew
The one thing I love about the Lenten season is to ponder Jesus’ life in the desert. I truly believe that he had an other-worldly experience there and I also believe that we cannot fathom what those 40 days were like.
One thing I know for sure was that the devil tempted him. You know, the devil will come after you when you are at your weakest. He sees a toe-hole into the life you are living and wants to ease himself, discreetly, into the middle of your thoughts and actions.
I am sure he is ecstatic about the state of our world today. He is there knowing how bored and anxious we are, and he is hitting us just like a robocall. This morning I was listening to my voicemails and one of them was a robocall telling me that my small business qualified for some low-interest funding due to the coronavirus. The caller had to run into a quick meeting but if I would press 1 then they could get the information they needed to get me the money that I needed. Don’t get me wrong, I need money. But I am not going to go that route in order to get it. I have been anxious, the devil sees that, and wants to heal my anxiety. “Get away from me Satan!”
The fact that we cannot worship as a congregation has got Satan written all over it. “Isolate those people and they will not go back to the Father once this is all over.” I know that is the devil’s way of thinking. But guess what? That’s not going to happen. People are buying each other’s meals in the drive-thru line. People are allowing the elderly to check out before them. Other people are shopping for the elderly. Facebook is full of motivation and prayers and love. Maybe we’re like the 2nd Ghostbusters movie where the people of New York come together at the stroke of midnight New Year’s Eve and sing Auld Lang Syne and the ooze (or slime) is charged positively. We might think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and then we are nothing but surprised at the way that people are coming together. It might be killing us with the thought that we can’t go to church and then we realize that yes, we can, even if it’s in our own homes.
“Every word that comes from the mouth of God” can be heard anywhere. It is our job to say “get away from me Satan” and to read, study and speak the word of God. We will not just get through this time of uncertainty, we will become stronger in who we are. That’s if we are Christians or Jews or Muslims or Hindi or whatever. We will come out on the other side stronger in our faith.
