It goes without saying that this is a weird season for all of us, but alas, I’m saying it anyway— It’s weird. It’s been a month since “normal” as I knew it was paused, resulting in an upheaval of my calendar and a whole lot of extra quality time with my children.
My kids are delightful. I feel like I should just state that upfront. They are a joy to the world, really. But so much time in self-isolation has definitely put a magnifying glass to all things that could be… How do I say this tactfully?…annoying.
Why even bring it up?
Every day I battle with my 4 year-old about telling the truth and accepting responsibility. I’m sure it’s a very normal phase for a kid his age, but it is downright annoying. I swear a 100 times a day I hear a version of the words “It wasn’t me!” — Who spilled the popcorn? Not me! Why is your sister crying? I didn’t do it! What happened in here? It was Eloise!
Day after day, we have the same conversation about the importance of not casting blame and owning up to our mistakes, even when we think we’re going to be in trouble. I keep waiting, praying it will finally click, but today I realized how difficult of a concept it truly is to grasp. When I think about it, I don’t know very many adults who are good at taking responsibility and not pointing a finger. Sure, we may be more subtle than a 4 year old about it, but we all really love to dodge blame wherever we can, don’t we? And more to that, we think there must always be someone to blame. Even when there isn’t.
I’ll cut to the chase of what I’m trying to say— We aren’t comfortable with weird seasons like the one we’re in, so we say things like, “Everything happens for a reason!” or “There’s got to be a purpose for all of this!” or “God must really want to teach us something!”
And in my opinion, those phrases are just ways of casting blame.
I don’t know much about COVID-19, but I can tell you it is not God’s handy work. And I can’t find any thing in the Bible to support the notion that everything happens for a reason, either. You can blame the enemy if you wish. But I think sometimes bad things just happen. There isn’t anyone who can shoulder all of the blame, and what help would it be now if there was?
What I do find in the Bible is the promise that God will take what the enemy meant for evil and use it for good. Our God restores, He doesn’t harm. He didn’t send the coronavirus to teach us a lesson. This is a senseless pandemic we are facing, it isn’t happening for a “reason.” But our God can (and will) make beauty from ashes.
Circling back to where we started, I want to give us the same advice I annoyingly give my son every day— Accept responsibility.
No, I’m obviously not saying to accept responsibility for a global pandemic. But instead of pointing fingers or trying to find the hidden meaning of all of this, let’s be responsible for what we can. We don’t have much control over anything, as I’m sure everything that’s going on has proven. But we can take responsibility for how we react, what we say, what steps we take, and where we place our hope.
There’s no one here to blame, so let’s just take the responsibility.