by Pastor Brad Rogers

The conversation has already started. Our president, local leaders, health experts, and even you and I have begun talking about what it might look like to “open up” the country again. Though even the experts cannot agree on what the right timeline might be for loosening distancing restrictions, the planning has nonetheless begun. The question is not if the “stay at home” or “safer at home” orders will be lifted, but when.

Someday, though no one quite knows when, we will emerge from our cocoons like butterflies with eyes squinting in the bright, spring sun. Just like caterpillars that undergo a metamorphosis while tucked in a chrysalis, so too shall we be changed by this experience. But how? What innovations will be gained? What cultural expressions will be lost? Will we continue to shake hands or will that be a relic of the past like greeting one another with a “holy kiss?”

Though we will undoubtedly be changed, I have begun to wonder what will endure from this wilderness experience. We are battling an enemy that cannot be seen with the naked eye. What’s more, while some present obvious symptoms of the virus, others remain asymptomatic making it difficult to determine who and what is “safe.” As of late, we have become captive to suspicion. Do you look at people differently now? What if you know that they traveled to a viral hotspot? Has your perception of doorknobs, keypads, and store-bought goods been altered? When we emerge, I imagine that this captivity to suspicion will be difficult to leave behind.

Long ago, God set Israel free from captivity in Egypt, but captivity has a way of remaining with people. Though God took His people out of Egypt, the people struggled to leave Egypt behind. In the book of Numbers, the Israelites showed a continued slavery to their past.

All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness… Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”Numbers 14:1-4 (NIV), selected verses

Freedom with uncertainty can be more unsettling than slavery with certainty. When the day comes and we leave our newfound captivity, our bondage to suspicion may remain. The truth is that we’ve never been able to control the world. Life has always been fragile; it has never been safe. We must be wise and careful, yet non-anxious and faithful.

To look at one another once again without the shroud of mistrust will be a choice. Will we emerge from this experience still constrained to its doubt and uncertainty (like the Israelites) or return to the freedom of trusting in God’s deliverance and choose to live unimpeded, transformed both inside and out?