by Pastor Su Kim

“Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding.” – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

The suddenness with which the world as we knew it changed as a result of COVID-19 did not give humanity much time to disguise the truth. Rats in the cellar came out from hiding as the pandemic resulted in widespread panic. But the notion of being able to hide anything from a God who is everywhere and knows everything is foolish.

It is foolish because it cannot be done. It is foolish because it refuses the lovingkindness of our Lord and Savior, who died and rose again to make us whole.

In Psalm 139, King David praised God for His goodness, and often for deliverance from a trying situation, revealing his intensely personal relationship with God. It closes with these words: Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24, NIV).

As we struggle together with this global pandemic, what “rats in a cellar” have you found in your life? How might the Holy Spirit be illuminating what is in your heart that the light of Christ might shine brighter in and through you?

May this trying situation reveal, not only the rats in the cellar, but also our good Father in heaven and our personal relationship with Him as He leads us in the way everlasting.