normal

Forced to live in a way we have never had to live under the threat of a pandemic virus, all most people want to do is stop the spread of the virus and get back to normal.  Life is filled with unexpected and unwanted events that take us away from our most common way of living.  The death of a loved one is probably one of the most life-altering events anyone can go through, but now there is the death of normal.  If our reality because of the pandemic virus is changed forever and how we communicate and live, maybe there’s parts of it that aren’t so bad after all.  If our normal has been to step on people and cheat people and to do everything possible to erase God from every part of society, perhaps we don’t need to go back to normal.  If normal means continued abortions, deception, fraud and greed, we don’t need to go back to normal.  If normal is getting back to our addiction to pornography, drugs and sex trafficking, let’s forget normal.  If getting back to normal is getting back to our idols and locking God back into small manageable compartments in our lives, God is not interested in normal.  Getting back to normal is what God’s people have always wanted.  Look at what the prophet Amos said.

 “Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail, Saying: “When will the New Moon be past, That we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, That we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals– Even sell the bad wheat?” The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their works.” Amos 8:4-7

In the hearts of God’s people, (by the way this was not all of God’s people) all they wanted was to get back to their normal way of life that God strictly opposed. 

Personally, I want to get back to hand shakes and group hugs and fellowships with brothers and sisters in Christ.  But maybe God is speaking through this pandemic that a major shift in our spiritual paradigm needs to take place.  Maybe God is saying to you and me, “I want to be back into the center of your family and your life.”  We really don’t need to go back to normal, we need to let our new pursuit of God become our new normal.