Whose afraid of the Big Bad ....Virus?

If I’m being totally honest, I will say we are at times (Or just maybe just me. Allen is almost always the calm in the midst of our storms. Love that man)! Such chaos surrounds us with closings and quarantines and lost jobs and friends/family being on the front lines and exposed daily and can’t even hug their loved ones. Most days I wake up and think It’s just all a horrific nightmare….then I turn the news on and realize, Nope! It’s real life! This is really happening and affecting the Entire World!!! Too big to wrap our minds around for sure! But you know what else is happening? God’s people are turning to Him for refuge, for protection, for mercy, for Deliverance!!! I am listening to podcasts of godly men and women urging us to turn to the Lord and trust in Him through all this. Men and Women whose lives are interrupted in all this…their speaking engagements - canceled. Their income -cancelled. Their lives - on hold! Just like all of ours. Yet they are encouraging us to Lift our eyes and Put our Hope and Trust in the Lord Almighty! Even on NBC this morning, I heard it! It was so encouraging!

I am also amazed at the scripture being shared. God has each of us in a different place and each of us reading different scriptures, yet they all are applicable to what we are going thru right now! Man! If that isn’t proof that the Word of God is Alive & Breathing!!! Speaking of…let me digress for a second…if you haven’t listened to Matt Maher’s Alive and Breathing song, go check it out here! It’s so encouraging and a reminder of what we are to be doing. What our purpose is!!! And that leads me to my whole purpose for writing this post!

Last night, I was reading in Exodus chapters 7-11 where Moses has to keep returning to Pharaoh and deliver the message that God has given him, which is “Let my people go, so that they may worship me”. I was just struck by the repetitiveness of this, which I had not noticed before. That over and over and over, this is the message God has his leader deliver to the Enemy…”LET MY PEOPLE GO THAT THEY MAY WORSHIP ME”! And it began to just connect inside my heart, as I’ve also been simultaneously reading the Book “SING” by Keith & Kristine Getty (an oldie but a goodie)…the realization that …

THIS is our PURPOSE!! TO WORSHIP THE LORD!

and TO BRING HIM GLORY!!

When we feel stuck, when we feel desperate, when we feel like we don’t know where else to turn and we don’t’ know what else to do -LET’S WORSHIP OUR CREATOR!! When we feel depressed, when we feel anxious, when we feel lost, when we feel alone, when we feel like we can’t go on one more moment or one more day, let’s just STOP! Take a quiet moment! Let’s turn our phones off, turn our TVs off, turn our busy minds off…and do exactly what we were created to do…LETS WORSHIP THE LORD! Even while we are praying for deliverance from this enemy, the Coronavirus, Let’s Worship the Lord!

Oh, how we long for DELIVERANCE! Deliverance from our sickness (AKA- CORONAVIRUS), deliverance from our QUARANTINE (yes, please!!), deliverance from our pain, deliverance from hard relationships, deliverance from our own stupidity at times (Can I get an Amen here? LOL), deliverance from our sadness, deliverance from our financial struggles…of course, I could go on forever, BUT…the best news is this.. CHRIST has already come to SET US FREE and He has already delivered us! A relationship with Christ is all we need in these dark times. We don’t need more toilet paper (Seriously? Baffling Phenomenon!) or more canned goods or more water or more snacks, nearly as much as WE NEED CHRIST!!! He is enough, yall!

So while we seek his deliverance from this nasty virus, let’s take a moment and PRAISE THE LORD as Matt Maher’s song says. I’ll leave you with the lyrics to the song and please, please if you get a sec, head on over to youtube (or Spotify or however you listen to your music) and give his song Alive and Breathing a listen. It will bring you so much hope and encouragement in the midst of your quarantine (or maybe you’re still working and exhausted and need encouragement even more than the rest of us stuck at home. This is for you too!). Be blessed, yall! (my comments are in italics beside the lyrics. Can’t help myself. (ha-ha)

ALIVE & BREATHING - BY MATT MAHER

What holds your heart
What stirs your soul
What matters come to mind
The cares you keep
The thoughts you think
It's not all wasted time
Seek and you will find

Joy still comes in the morning (OH yes it does!!)
Hope still walks with the hurting
If you're still alive and breathing (If you’re reading this, that includes you! Heehee)
Praise the Lord
Don't stop dancing and dreaming
There's still Good News worth repeating (YES! So much good news to repeat!)
So lift your head and keep singing
Praise the Lord

Years roll by
We wonder why
We lost our way from home
Our Father finds
The child inside
We had left for growing old
Awake, awake, awake my soul (Can you just feel it? Can you feel God trying to awake our souls?)

Joy still comes in the morning
Hope still walks with the hurting
If you're still alive and breathing
Praise the Lord
Don't stop dancing and dreaming (OOO! The dancer and dreamer in me loves this line!!)
There's still Good News worth repeating
So lift your head and keep singing (Come on! We can do this!)
Praise the Lord

Let everything, let everything, let everything
Praise the Lord
In the working, in the waiting (We are all in the waiting season now…waiting on this virus to release us)
Praise the Lord
In the blessing, in the breaking
Praise the Lord
In the dying, the rising
Let it praise the Lord
Let it praise the Lord
Praise the Lord

Joy still comes in the morning
Hope still walks with the hurting
If you're still alive and breathing
Praise the Lord
Don't stop dancing and dreaming
There's still Good News worth repeating
So lift your head and keep singing
Praise the Lord

Let’s hang in there together and do what we were called to do…Worship the Lord! And if you don’t know the Lord, we beg of you to reach out to us via email or social media and we would be absolutely elated to introduce you to our Deliverer, King Jesus!! He will change your life, as he has done for us!

Worshipping thru quarantine, ;)

Allen & Carol