Recently I was in the country of Uganda in a little village called Bubukwanga. As we were walking through the bush making our way to a small church the Lord spoke very clearly to me. He said, “Every Christian is coming up out of the season of the pandemic either deceived or desperate.” I knew this to be a word for all Christians, and especially true for Christian leaders.
Of course God did not cause the pandemic, but like everything else God’s intention is to cause everything to work together for the good, for those who are called according to His purposes. When the pandemic began in 2020 many prophetic voices spoke of God’s desire to do a deeper work and an accelerated work towards Christ-likeness in the bride of Christ. The enemy was trying to use the pandemic to do what he always does; kill, steal, and destroy, but God’s desire was to take advantage of the battle to cultivate in the heart of the Church a desire to go further up and further in our calling to more fully experience and manifest the life of Christ. He wanted the Church to be pressed and shaped into a mature image of Christ so that when she came out of the pandemic she would come out as the radically yielded body through which Jesus could heal and harvest all those who are oppressed by the enemy among fallen and broken humanity. Unfortunately, many Christians got consumed with confusion, fear, and anger. The Church became comfortable with pajamas and zoom Church, and the enemy tried to cultivate a passionless Bride (what an oxymoron).
We are in a different time now in relation to the pandemic, and there are emerging a people who are desperate for the heights in Christ, and yet there are others who are emerging still in a fog of deception in one form or another. Which one are you? Have you come out of the pandemic with a heart that feels driven by the love of Christ to have a larger experience of who Christ is and all that Christ has for yourself and for others than you have ever known before, or do you find yourself ensnared by fear, isolation and a compromised, distracted and passive spiritual routine? The hungry who get satisfied by Him stay hungry, but the satisfied seem to never be hungry for Him.
If you are among the desperate, then pick up the pace, for the door of the wardrobe has been thrown open for you, but if you are among the deceived then ask the Lord to awaken your heart and open the eyes of your heart to catch a glimpse of Narnia once again. It’s not too late. It’s never too late, but why miss a moment of the river of life when you don’t have to?