Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

In times of turmoil, God calls His people not to generate more heat, but to be the light of the world.

“Instead of reacting to what is, what if we responded to what should be?”
— Kris Vallotton

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an appreciation for quotable quotes. I also love inspiring speeches, to be sure. But I think the short, pithy quote is hard to beat. They say that a picture paints a thousand words. But a short quote, like the one above from Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church in California, is like a thousand words reduced to their essence.

Incidentally, this one is reminiscent of my favourite quote of all, by the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw:

“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

When both of these quotes are put together, they strike a chord with me as a Christian, because they speak to me of what we’re called to be. What is that? We are called to be a people marked by a refusal to look at what’s happening around us through the world’s eyes, but as the one group of people on the earth in whom the Spirit of Truth resides. We are to hear God’s voice and to see events and issues from His perspective — and in this way, act as a prophetic voice to the world around us.

And because God’s Truth is total truth, we have access to far better answers to any kind of issue than the world can provide. Indeed, this is echoed in the prayer that accompanied the Vallotton quote, which reveals the intent behind his words:

‘Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ God, let us be people who pursue Your perspective above all other things. Give us eyes to see as You see and ears to hear as You hear. Teach us how to respond like You would. Lord, we want to be more like You!

In short, we are called to be the one group of people who are above all proactive, not reactive. Such an ability is all the more vital at a time like this. Right now, a unique health crisis threatens both public health and national prosperity, and at a time of increasing global political unrest.

Sadly, over the past eighteen months since this crisis began, I have seen one popular conservative Christian commentator after another reacting in extremely negative ways in relation to this crisis.

They range from negative attitudes to the restrictions on civil liberties — which have been roundly criticised with terms like ‘draconian’, ‘totalitarian’, ‘authoritarian’, ‘Orwellian, and ‘police state’ — to ridiculing Christians who dutifully obey these orders, including the closure of churches, as “pandemic alarmists” and “sheeples”.

Or even more extraordinary was the example of people who willingly downloaded the Federal Government’s COVIDSafe app being compared to German citizens taking the ‘Hitler Oath’ under the Nazis. More recently, the Prime Minister’s four-step “road map” out of the pandemic has been equated with Apartheid, or even more bizarrely, to the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘social credit’ system due to the potential of some form of ‘vaccine passport’. I wonder what our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters in China would make of that equation?

And just this last week, someone compared those who protested over the weekend for ‘freedom’ with our Diggers who fought in the two World Wars. This was a self-exalting proposition that a number of people found odious.

In relation to these various claims, I’m persuaded to agree with Greg Sheridan of The Australian, who in his July 9 column noted, “On COVID, only extremists have consistent positions”. That these attitudes are “extremist” seems to me to be proven by the evidence.

But the worst aspect of this kind of extreme rhetoric is its divisiveness, and its focus on the political at the expense of the spiritual.

As I said, my focus here is on finding a positive way forward, so I mention these examples only for the purpose of identifying the problem so that a positive solution can be found. So after much thought and prayer, here’s what I have to offer.

During the writing of this I read an article by our editor Kurt Mahlburg reporting on an interview on the ABC’s God Forbid with fellow contributor David Robertson. In that interview, David was asked, “Do you see Covid as God ‘smiting’ us?” — to which he answered:

No. But I think it’s very interesting. Because that’s such a pejorative question, a lot of church people say, ‘No, no, no.” My view personally is that, if it were not for the restraining hand of God, we would face a lot more ills. And there’s a sense in which it’s a little bit like God’s saying, “Okay, okay, you do it your way.

So, when I came to Australia we had drought, and then we had bushfires, and now we’ve got plague, and coming up soon, you know, war or something like that. There’s just a lot of stuff that goes on, and we think we’re in control. We think that we can control everything. And I don’t think we can. And I think a lot of the anger that people feel about this, is they think, “Well the government ought to fix this,” or “Someone ought to sort this”. And maybe it’s not within their power to do that. Maybe they can alleviate things and so on.

So my view is that God permits or allows these things. I don’t think Sydney right now has been smitten because — I don’t know — some dreadful sin that Gladys has committed or you or I have committed. I don’t believe that at all. But I do believe these things are permitted to humble us…”

As I write this, Sydney is under the strictest lockdown imaginable, and yet case numbers are escalating daily. Now even people in younger age groups are being impacted. All of this raises the question: if this lockdown isn’t working, what will? What more can possibly be done?

As an example, I live in one of the LGAs which is basically cut off from the outside world. I cannot cross the border into another LGA without breaking the law. We’ve now entered our fifth week with no end in sight, and like many, my business is completely grounded.

So it’s in this context that I was reading what David said in his interview. While reading, I had a strong impression in my spirit of the passage in 2 Samuel 24, where God sent a plague against Israel because of David’s sin in conducting a census, where in an act of penitent sacrifice David bought the threshing floor where the Angel of the Lord appeared to him.

Now I’m with David Robertson here. I’m not saying that God confirmed to me that this was His response to the sins of our nation or of anyone in it. But the idea that came to me was of David taking responsibility for the nation when he made that sacrificial purchase “in order to build an altar to the Lord, so that the plague may be withdrawn from the people” (v. 21).

The thought which came to mind was for our Prime Minister to call for a National Day of Prayer and Repentance. Just like Shaw, I also sometimes “dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’

But how can this be achieved? I have no idea. But I imagine there are plenty of people out there who are far more practical than me, and who could work out the logistics, as well as those who operate or minister in the political environment. At the very least, it has to surely be worthy of discussion.

But I feel that we cannot just have a day of prayer amongst ourselves that the rest of the nation is unaware of — which is what is happening currently every February with the National Day of Prayer. I believe this has to be top down, which of course means our Christian Prime Minister making the call.

Through this, too, there needs to be a repairing of divisions in the Body of Christ. Rather than dividing over our political differences as ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ — like Judah and Israel of old — instead, we need to bury these differences in the spirit of Christ’s prayer in John 17.

In short, I believe God is calling us all to be true to that prayer at the head of the article, which I see as the right foundation:

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” God, let us be people who pursue Your perspective above all other things. Give us eyes to see as You see and ears to hear as You hear. Teach us how to respond like You would. Lord, we want to be more like You!