The Long Haul

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ― Winston S. Churchill

This thing is going to last awhile. The virus is going to be around for many months to come. “Returning to normal,” if there will be such a thing, is a long way off. As a church, we can’t even plan a reopening because that date is not within sight. It pains me to say that, but that’s our reality.

So, what are we going to do? Get discouraged? Climb into ourselves and quit emotionally? Let down our guard in the household and let chaos take over?

Or are we going to see this thing through to the end. Because winning is not about playing well in the first half. It’s about finishing well through a hard fought third and fourth quarter. 

I wrote this in the back of my Bible as a young seminary student after hearing it from a chapel speaker, “The test of a person’s character is what it takes to stop them.” 

Do you have what it takes to make it through this quarantine over the long haul?

It was one thing when everything was new. We recognized it would get hard, but there was even a bit of excitement over the newness of things. Then we realized we had to put our heads down and keep going. But if the time has not yet come for you, it probably will, when you feel like you don’t have the energy to persevere. Because this is going to last a lot longer, we have to build resolve to honor God all the way through, during financial hardships, relationship crises, times of anger over the situation, extreme boredom, or just depletion of emotional strength.

But we can do it. You can do it. The promise we have from Jesus is that he will be with us always, even to the end of the world. And I love this promise that God gave to his people in the Old Testament. 

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God” (Isaiah 43:1-3 ESV).