I hope you know the qualifiers, here.
I’m not dogmatically asserting anything
specific, or that God has spoken to me, etc.
But when God moves to alter your life substantially, it’s always good to
ask what He’s trying to teach us. Here
are some tentative proposals, in no particular order:
Emotionally driven worship:
The modern American Evangelical church has for a while now pursued
large, hyped-up gatherings and loud CCM-radio songs on their church stage, seeking
an emotional high, which they equate with rich worship. Turns out you can do that on a youtube video,
if you do it right.
Isn’t worship something
more than watching?
Too-High-Churchiness:
My denomination does weekly Communion, and we love it. But some of us might think we NEED it, or
need the worship service to be exactly how we want it, for God to spiritually
bless His people. This points pastors to
extraordinary times when God may meet our needs without some ordinary means of
grace (sacraments, especially).
Abdicating parents:
Most Christian parents suffer some level of abdication:
asking too much of church or school that they should be doing themselves in
discipling their children. This time is
EXTREMELY POIGNANT for this. It’s almost
as if God is saying to us as parents, “YOU deal with them! They are yours to
steward, not the church or the school.”
Focus on family devotions in this time.
It’s time to learn to truly enjoy being together, which takes basic
Christian virtues like kindness, repentance, and forgiveness.
Personal relationship with Jesus:
Something else my circles might need to hear: we love to
emphasize the corporate aspect of worship and church life. Sometimes to the detriment of personal
devotions. Hey, what better time to work
on your own prayer life with God? Your
own enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the Scriptures?
Science:
Science can’t give us a world where all our problems are
solved or minimized right away. Natural
phenomena hit us that we don’t know how to handle. Humanity is vulnerable, and sometimes overcome by “acts of God.”
Markets and money:
We have taken pride and found security in our “strongest economy in the world.” What does God do to the proud (Luke 1:51-53)? What goes before a fall? Yes, a stable economy and money are earthly
ways God provides for us, but He has the right to remove them for a time, to
pull the rug out from under our presumption on His mercy.
Athletes, musicians, actors and other celebrities:
We follow them too zealously for how important they actually
are. We can survive without them, and it
would be a good idea to invest less time and money watching them.
Abortion:
We are so afraid of death coming to thousands of us.
But we are willing to let millions pro-actively initiate the death of unborn babies.
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