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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Struggling
With The New Despite the fact that
the Covid pandemic isn't quite over as some might want to believe, we're
attempting to get life back to pre-pandemic normal, but can we?
What is normal anyway? Who
defines normal when normality is a relative concept?
What normal is to you may not be normal for me.
What normal was in 2017 would have been considered abnormal to my
father who died in 2001. Beyond
that, is our normal God's normal?
Historically speaking,
normality is in constant flux. It
varies from generation to generation, from culture to culture, and
nowadays, from year to year. This
ever-evolving normality can be confusingly disruptive, as we are
experiencing in our world today. I question if life will
return to the exact pre-pandemic normal that we knew.
Most employees, for example, went to work back then.
Covid closed lots of workplace doors, leaving many working at home
in their online office. Asking
these people to leave home and go to work is no longer acceptable to
everyone. Adjusting to this
new normal has become a workplace challenge.
It was recently announced that 48,000 high tech jobs are being cut from the workforce. Microsoft is cutting 10,000 jobs because things have changed, and that due to artificial intelligence. The irony here is that which software developers have created is now pushing them out of the marketplace, but that's the new normal.
Church has not escaped
Covid's curse. Many churches
no longer exist. Others hope
to get back to what was once considered normal, but life seldom returns to
normal after such a catastrophic crisis.
It's to our benefit, then, to ask ourselves what lessons can be
learned from Covid and how to proceed in this new normal.
History tells me that such questions are seldom asked, so answers
aren't found. The only lesson
we learn from history is that we don't learn any lesson from history, so
we fumble our way into the future. Life
becomes circular, no different than the Jews circling aimlessly in the
wilderness where they eventually died. The Book of Acts
provides one way in which church can survive a new normal, which for them
was salvation being open to the Gentiles.
This new normal became contentiously divisive, and that had to end
if church was to survive. After
what I would think was a much heated and exhausting deliberation, church
leaders prayed. We read the
outcome in Acts 15:28. "It seemed good
to the Holy Spirit and to
us not to
burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:" Questions were asked.
Debates were intense. An
answer was found. God's will,
His normal, was implemented. Is it time for church to
learn some lessons from recent history?
Can we ask our questions, have our debates, and find some answers.
Can we seek our Lord and come to the place where we say it seems
good to the Holy Spirit and to us as we move into a new normal?
It's a difficult task, but a necessary task if we are going to
survive the next crisis that's knocking at our door.
Consider the countless implications if the war in
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