Covid-19 is a world disaster, no doubt. The world is at war and we are recording casualties every day. Every day, we are picking up fallen soldiers from the battlefield. Our foe seems to be gaining grounds each day, attacking new frontiers and threatening to take new territories. Businesses are folding up, profits are going south, international trade is grinding to a halt, planes can’t fly anymore, ports and borders are closing, the streets are emptying up – actually encouraged to empty up, hospitals are overwhelmed, health workers are gripped with fear every morning as they leave for work, churches cannot gather and fellowship, our aged are living each day in fear, human touch and affection is now a taboo, week after week communities and nations are locking down and very soon, we may not open our front doors to our neighbors no matter how hard they scream for help. And we don’t know when we can start enjoying our football games again as the monumental stadiums with their enviable crowds now lie empty and quiet. The arrows hurled at us by our Covid-19 foe are damaging and distressing – no one is spared; only the things that didn’t matter much to us – the trees, flowers, birds and animals.
But that is not the whole story. We are also winning and gradually disarming covid-19. It might not plainly seem so but the recovery numbers are rising daily and we are slowly and surely reclaiming captured territories. We are beginning to take the battle to our foe, and we will soon be planting victory flags as we push back.
But in the midst of this dark and brutal war, there is a bright side – what I call the spoils from the war. With all the gloom and doom, it might be thoughtless, even seem insensitive to talk about any positive sides of this vicious onslaught because of the overwhelming devastation it is causing families and businesses. This battle was uninvited, we were ill-prepared, and our foe is merciless and vicious. Yet we must look for/to the unintended positive consequences or the hole in her armor that gives us the chance to stand in battle and hope to win. And when the war is all done and won, those will be the spoils that we will gather home. Our world will not be the same again because this novel covid-19 rudely interrupted it but we will also emerge stronger, together and even novel in accommodating each other.
There are various spoils that we can gather home from this battlefield but these 3 trumps all:
Spoil #1: Staying home
Having the opportunity to stay home and spend time with kids and spouse was a rare occurrence for most families pre-covid-19. Everyone was spending more time elsewhere than home. Homes for many had become like hotel rooms where people check-in at night and check-out in the morning. Lives were lived on airplanes, hotel rooms, airports, offices, in traffic and everywhere else but the home. Homes were becoming houses and parent’s presence at home had become a present to their kids on special occasions. Hopefully we enjoy this bright side of covid-19, relearn how to be with each other and gather this spoil by still finding a way to keep the balance post this war.
Spoil #2: Turning to each other
The sharing of best practices over various media and care for each other during this period has been overwhelming. Even with the restrictions on social gathering and enforcement of social distancing, we are finding innovative ways of reaching out to each other to share and encourage one another. We now have time and presence of mind to think about each other and genuinely love one another. There is less enmity and competition amongst us and we are turning to each other to unite to defeat a common foe. We truly miss this authenticity and vulnerability; such care; such love and such unity. Again hopefully, we will carry this spoil through the rest of our lives, post this war.
Spoil #3: Turning to God
Nothing has come into more focus in this fight than the sheer nothingness of man. This pandemic has become a plague that can wipe man from the surface of the earth in no time if God, who created man and the earth does not intervene. By His single breathe, he can wipe man away and by His single breathe, He can also wipe this pandemic away and restore our world instantly – literally from one minute to the next. But He will do no such instant thing. He has allowed it because He wants to teach us to turn to Him and lean on Him. He wants to walk us through it and emerge stronger in our love for one another, richer in our relationship with Him, deeper in our understanding of Him and closer in our walk with Him. This is the biggest spoil we will gather when the war with covid-19, the world’s fiercest foe ever, is over.
So, we are on the battlefield and the war rages on. Every day we fight Covid-19 with both our knowledge in science and our faith in God. Our fate can no longer be in our fortified borders or strong economy or powerful army and ammunitions or enviable discoveries of the past or our polarized politics. These things that took every toil, time and sweat of men the centuries over, to build and idolize have all proved impotent to our Covid-19 foe. But we will indeed win this battle and we will gather the spoils also. We will win it in the old ancient way with the timeless weapon Jesus gave us – the two greatest commandments: “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence and that you love your neighbour as well as you do yourself.” Luke 10:27 (The Message). This is how we will win – by gathering the spoils of turning to God in reverence and turning to each other in love.
