Up until December 2021, daily COVID numbers had stayed below 1 million. In the last few weeks however they’ve blown right through the 3 million mark. So what does the Bible have to say about this ongoing health disaster? Where is God in COVID?
Well to begin with, we should be slow in pointing the finger at God. As comedian John Steward recently said, ‘if you’d like to know where this Wuhan novel Coronavirus originated, perhaps we should start by asking the Wuhan novel Coronavirus lab’. The disease has the exact same name at the lab! Yet due to the WHO not asking those simple questions until months after they needed to be asked, we’ll probably never know. So much of this pandemic can be put down to human error.
Yet for those with eyes to see, this pandemic has seen many examples of God’s enormous grace:
To begin with, children have been almost completely unaffected by this disease. What incredible mercy that our young have almost negligible infection rates, and those infected usually have mild to no symptoms.
How amazing that a vaccine can be created, tested and rolled out in less that 18 months. Those who lived through the Spanish Flu or Bubonic plague had no such aid. The vaccine roll-out in our country has been nothing short of incredible.
How relieving that daily infection rates skyrocketed when a less virulent strain of the virus (Omicron) was circulating, and after most people who want the vaccine in Australia have been given it. The number of people currently in the ICU is remarkably low compared to daily case numbers. Africa has also not been the disaster people were expecting, yet. As Christians we should therefore be thanking God for his small mercies in this horrible situation, and asking what God would have us learn from all this? Is this God reminding humanity that we are not in control, and that we should return to Him? While we cannot be certain, that’s a pretty good guess according to the Bible.
