My lessons from COVID-19
(This is a compilation of 4 articles I wrote last March 2021, on some of the lessons I learned from Covid-19. I hope this can provide insights to you on the different aspects of the pandemic as we still continue to face its unknown future, prepare ourselves for it, get the most out of it, and allow God to bless us through it.)
The physical and experiential aspect (The Freeman, March 2, 2021)
I don’t know for others, but as far as I am concerned, this COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus, has been one of the most significant, albeit disruptive, global events which happened in my lifetime. Nothing, not even those worldwide financial crises in past decades, has affected and changed humanity as a whole, on a scale that includes all people, as this plague. Within the span of my lifetime, this is one of the most significant indeed.
No, this is not the most significant. Our lifetimes are actually very short compared to the expanse of eternity — so anything which affects and changes our spiritual lives for the whole of eternity would be immeasurably more significant. And the life-changing decisions that we make, and experience, would be the only one that will matter. After that spiritual experience, then maybe this pandemic will be one of the most significant happenstances. One that we can draw lessons from as we face the future.
On the physical and experiential side, one of the lessons that we might learn concerns our categorization of what we consider important or not, both on a lifetime perspective and in the daily grind. We wake up each day with pre-set ideas on what are important to us and what are not. It covers what we consider essential and non-essential. The pandemic has taught us that we could do a lot of interpersonal dealings without meeting in person. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams attest to that. Food and non-food delivery services flourished, indicating we don’t really need to go somewhere for anything.
I know it’s sometimes hard, more for some than others, to change. After the lockdowns and restrictions, I know of many friends who go out simply for the sake of going out. We want to go to malls or anywhere we were free to go before. It’s as easy to say we will eat outside as we can opt to stay and eat at home before. COVID-19 changed that, but many want to go back to the old normal as if the pandemic never happened. We were already talking about the “New Normal”, but many want to revert back to the “Old Normal.”
Building designs need to change, too. A year into the pandemic and we now understand that fresh air or open air is safe; that closed spaces, especially hermetically-sealed ones, are bad and dangerous. You might as well be better opening your windows (if you have any), than buying all those air purifiers with “hepa” filters, if you’re going to fill your rooms with people anyway. Those old open-air buses might be better than all our new, closed, and air-conditioned ones. The new normal might actually be the old ways.
SARS-COV-2 is not the last virus to affect man; it is certain there will be new ones in the future, some even worse. Man’s continuing utter destruction of the created world makes that certain, especially the habitat of wildlife and the latter’s trafficking. If we don’t learn the lessons from COVID-19, we will make it easier, and sooner, to bring to us the next new one.
The social aspect (The Freeman, March 16, 2021)
My learnings on the physical and experiential side were mostly on the way we usually do things. The pandemic showed us many of these were not really the best or even right. So, we innovated to more efficient ways. Which is good! The next aspect would be the social one, with a lot of discoveries we realized, too. If we sum up all the lessons we could learn from this pandemic, we’d soon realize there’s a silver lining to this unhappy situation.
What the virus did was restrict our movements from place to place. While that surely had an effect on our livelihood and the economy, it made us stay longer in a single place where we are together with the people closest to us — our families. Looking at it from retrospect, we realize the last two centuries of human development has actually pulled families apart from each other, with breadwinners spending hours at work away from children. Some even had to go abroad for months and years relegating the work of rearing up children to surrogates.
The CQs (E, ME, G, MG) brought families together to spend more time with each other. Even husband and wives needed the enhanced quality time offered by the restrictions. Whereas before, we talk of trips and holidays as “bonding times,” here is the ready bonding available when people work from home and children have online classes. The latter gave that golden opportunity for parents to get more involved in our children’s education. Which we forgot! Our children’s education is supposed to be the responsibility of parents — the school and their teachers merely acts as aides and accessories. With the pandemic, we can actively play that role.
The sudden development of online communication has brought about an increasing social interaction between family members and friends who are afar, some even on separate continents. Now, parents, siblings, grandparents, and even cousins, regularly check on each other more often, bonding in the process. The downside of this aspect is experienced by those without the capability, of course, and loneliness can be a disastrous thing, too. But overall, the pandemic showed us that we don’t need to be in one place to strengthen relationships, but that also, being in one place is great for immediate families.
No one has quantified yet on the significant value of the social and relational development on humanity this pandemic has offered to us. But it also depends on how we embrace the benefits and maximize their contribution to families, society, national development, and civilization as a whole. This pestilence has given us a chance to get better. To be better. As individuals, families, and as a people. But it’s an opportunity to be embraced and accepted. And worked on. We are with our families for a longer time, we should make the most out of it. Especially for husband and wives to improve in their relationships and for parents and children to enjoy their bond as God intended for them. This is an opportunity of a lifetime!
The divine aspect (The Freeman, March 23, 2021)
Where is God in this pandemic? Many will agree that COVID-19 has resulted in a heightened perception of the reality of God today. Two questions come to mind — is God aware or involved? And if he is, what’s the purpose or reason for all of these? The world’s population may have different beliefs or perceptions about God, but the questions are common especially among the monotheistic ones — Jews, Christians, Muslims, who comprises 56%, and also for the others — Hindus and Buddhists, who comprises 20%. Only the 15%, the atheists, may not be thinking about it.
But even those who believe in God, especially from the Abrahamic religions, may not think so seriously about God’s role in this pandemic. Most, if not all of our prayers, center on asking God for both protection and provision during this pandemic. Indeed, supplications to the Almighty have increased manifold since last year as cases and deaths pile up, the number of the latter surpassing the last two numbers of dead in World War I and World War II. We ask God for help to rescue us. But the question remains — did God know beforehand? Did he allow it? Or the most difficult of all — did he ordain it to happen?
The answer to these questions depends on our understanding of the very essence of God and his eternal immutable attributes. He is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, among other things. There is nothing that he doesn’t know, didn’t, or won’t know. He knows the future, up to the end of time, and the whole of eternity. “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.” (John 1:3). When the COVID-19 emerged into being, God knew about it. The fact that it did means God allowed it to happen. And what he allows is part of his eternal plan and will.
It is important for us who believe in God, and even for those who don’t, to realize God is always an active player in what happens to the world and to each of us, every day and every minute of it! The whole creation, from beginning to end is part of his eternal plan, from the grandiose world events to the minute incident of our own individual lives. Nothing happens randomly, or by chance. God was, is, and will always be in control! He ordains everything in accordance with his will.
The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 46:9–10,
“Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.”
It would do us well to understand who God is and where he is in this pandemic. It is only by knowing how great a God we have that we can fully place our trust in him. If we know God and believe in him, we can face this life’s episode with trust and confidence.
As to the second question …
The “Why” aspect (The Freeman, March 30, 2021)
Why COVID-19? We first asked, did God know about the pandemic and allow it to happen? Of course, he does, God is always on top of things, always in control. Nothing happens without his knowledge — he permits and ordains everything. Otherwise, he would be less than God and not God at all. So, we go to the second question — why?
We may never know the complete reasons why, until such time we meet the Creator himself, if we, by his grace and mercy, meet him someday, for those who were called according to his purpose. But there are lessons enough in life, in the Scriptures, and in the experience, we have during this pandemic, that we can surmise and praise God for his goodness. To many of us, to those who lost loved ones, we see COVID-19 as the face of evil itself, in the same way that we see the Holocaust, the World Wars, and the likes of natural calamities and disasters like typhoons, earthquakes, famines, pestilence, that cause the deaths of hundreds and thousands. To ask why the pandemic happened is asking why evil exists in a world created by God.
We read in Scriptures that God caused the plagues in Egypt against the Pharaoh to cause the exodus of the Israelites to the Promised Land. Oftentimes, God intervened against Israel’s enemies causing them to be victorious and enjoy God’s protection. Yet in other instances, he sent plagues to his people, as when he sent locusts and famine to Jerusalem as narrated in the Book of Joel. But when the people repented, God said, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you.” (Joel 2:25).
When God causes what we consider “evil” or bad to happen, it is always with the reason that he is totally, perfectly good, and with the purpose that he loves us and wants the best for us. He oftentimes causes suffering to discipline us. “… God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.” (Hebrews 12:10). “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” (v.11). And yet at other times, he sends plagues to call us to repentance. He said in the Book of Joel (2:12),
“Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning,”
“Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish.” (Joel 2:13).
God ordains suffering, COVID-19 included, because of man’s sin, but also for our own growth. There are times that God accomplishes good through evil and suffering. Why God allowed and ordained COVID-19 to fall on man may be difficult to answer, but we can rest on the truth that God is, and will always be, good, and he loves us, and he is working out all things — including evil and suffering — according to the counsel of his will.
Parting Words … there are a lot more we can learn from this pandemic as we as humanity battles it in the coming years. The way I look at it, we can face it with fear and anxiety, or we can stand firm and courageous and believe in what Jesus said, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.” (Matthew 6:25). “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. (Matthew 6:31–32). The apostle Paul reminded us in Philippians 4:6–7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Our response to this pandemic is defined on how much we know God, believe in Jesus, and rely on the Holy Spirit. But it’s not just knowing as many of us have because many know about God but yet don’t know him. Jesus declared, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (John 10:14). He certainly was not referring to any belief, religion or practice, nor to anything we can do of ourselves — he emphasized on personal knowing, … a personal relationship between the sheep and the shepherd. Not until we know Jesus of Nazareth in a personal way, and has repented and accepted him as Savior and Lord of our lives can we go into that personal relationship with him and experience the grace and mercy of a loving God, his provision and protection in life including the assurance of being with him, well and throughout this pandemic.
To know Jesus in a personal way, and receive him as Savior and Lord may be the best thing, the best gift, the best lesson we could learn from Covid-19.
