There was a time when evangelistic Christianity permeated nearly every part of our lives.
I grew up in the so-called Bible Belt of East London, so you can imagine how saturated in faith my upbringing was.
All-night prayers, tent meetings, fasting and midweek Bible study and prayer meetings were all par for the course.
It was a love-filled childhood, wholesome and rooted in devotion, worship and prayer.
Growing up, I thought that is the childhood I hope to give to my own children.
But the world is a very different place to what it was then.
It's not just that the Nineties seemed a safer place to grow, but that the new millennium is a time of unprecedented innovation and technological advancement.
We have seen cellphones become smaller and turn into computers. We have seen the advancement of human rights and societies and more women take up leadership positions previously reserved for men.
But we have also seen the abuse that happens in our society – our homes, workplaces and, yes, even in our churches – more clearly.
Racial tensions have increased, the world feels like a less safe place for our children, and, since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic in 2020, we have lived with unprecedented levels of anxiety.
It feels like we are constantly just waiting for the bottom to fall out, and many Christians have become disengaged from the faith, asking the question, "If there is a God, and He is good, then why would he allow us to suffer so much?"
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Saying Covid-19 showed us flames would be an understatement.
But even after the worst pandemic the world has seen in recent history, I believe God still loves us.
People lost prized possessions, their incomes and in the worst cases people lost loved ones. But even with all of that loss and pain, he did not stop being gracious to us.
Those of us who did not get Covid-19 were not safe because of any measures or strict protocols we followed, it was simply by the grace of God, because there are people who followed those same rules but unfortunately, they did not make it.
The truth is that it could have been any of us, but our lives were spared.
There are people who say if God loves us so much, how could he let such painful things happen in the world?
I have come to learn not to try and defend God or his word, because he is perfectly capable of doing that himself. And if we don’t serve or worship him, the rocks will cry out, as Luke 19: 40 says.
I think there are very few, if any, non-believers who were converted by the pandemic. This is not for them. But there may have been believers who lost their faith because of it. This is for you.
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One preacher many years ago said the Bible is not to be read like a novel, because it it's not. But one needs to be in the spirit in order to understand it.
Pray first so that it's not just words, but so that Christ may breathe life into those words so they can work in your life.
If you read the Bible in the spirit, you begin to understand that the different books in fact in complement each other, and do not contradict each other as some would like you to believe.
It actually all connects.
