And so, like a glitch we’re all trapped in, Day 1 starts again today. Every time this happens to us, I think about a few things:

1. How this resembles certain aspects of my life, where I can’t seem to catch a break from really difficult things (I know, I’m so over this narrative too).
2. Whether I am going to combust with exhaustion of prolonged hoping and repeated disappointment (same deal with regard to my personal life).
3. How everyone’s faith journey is holding up, being marooned out here on our own (let’s face it, for many, our church life has been kinda shipwrecked).

I also think about this line Jesus said in Matthew 24:12 – how in the last days, the love of many will grow cold.

Granted, He wasn’t talking about COVID-19 per se (rather, a different kind of global pandemic, i.e. the increase of lawlessness, widespread evil and people casting off restraint), but it’s a line that lingers in my head anyway.

Perhaps (this semi-lockdown) is more like a vehicle that has broken down and forced everyone to navigate our faith by foot.

Just this week I received a confirmation from my doctor that I’m on the brink of a pretty serious medical condition (on top of the other one I already have, which had sparked this medical testing in the first place).

Although she had already given me a heads-up two weeks back when I first saw her, it was still upsetting despite my usual optimistic handling of the news.

It was only two nights later, when reading up on the things I had to do in response, that I fell asleep in tears.

Will my love grow cold? I wonder at times.

Will I one day go through something – something even worse than catastrophic heartbreak, one of my bestest friends dying or getting a diagnosis that changes my life – that finishes off my heart for God?

How many more plot twists, curve balls and detours can I take before I flatline into resignation?

In Proverbs 13:12, it says that “unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick”.
 
We may think another semi-lockdown of sorts is what will see hearts of faith go stale, as church falls further away from what we always knew it as.

But perhaps it is more like a vehicle that has broken down and forced everyone to navigate our faith by foot, revealing the true state of many hearts, many already weakened by the unrelenting disappointments and difficulties of life.
 
Perhaps the fire of your faith cooled a long time ago, though the programmes and activities we once called church kept it going on life support.

Perhaps it is mercy that we are jolted out of returning to our comfort zones yet again, to take a good look at our hearts. To see if:

• It is sick with disappointment or pain.
• It carries unresolved sin or issues. 
• Any real love for Jesus resides there.

Yes, another month of online church and cell groups and challenging conditions for community will be rough terrain.

But it is out here, outside the church walls we once defined our faith by, that our declarations of love will be tested.

This is the place of reckoning, refining and re-finding of the one true Source of our faith. And He longs to be found.

Remembering will stoke the dying embers of your heart.

Finally, I wanted to share a simple but comforting anchor that God dropped into my heart the day before I received my medical report.

My thoughts had been tossing about for the last two weeks of waiting for the results, and I couldn’t quite sit still with Him from all the anxiety.

What if my life would change forever? How would I make it out of this storm?

At the end of Awaken Generation‘s Convergence night on Monday, Alarice decided to share a clip from The Lion King, saying she often felt the Lord speak through Disney movies (I concur).

It was the scene of Simba meeting Rafiki after years of running away from the pride, believing he had contributed to his father’s death. And despite having watched the show several times in the last three decades of my life, it somehow still jumped out at me and my anxious heart that night.

Rafiki takes Simba to a lake, where he encounters the spirit of Mufasa in the sky. There, Mufasa says three things that made me tear up.

You have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are. Remember you are my son.

I went home with these words in my heart and wrote them down in my journal.

1. Don’t forget who you are.
2. Don’t forget who your Father is.
3. Don’t forget the destiny He’s given you.

The love of many will grow cold in the erosion of hope, strength and joy on a global and personal scale.

But what Mufasa said to Simba has also been echoed many times throughout the Old and New Testament: Remember.

When the fog of grief, fear and helplessness proves too thick to see anything ahead, steady your heart and remember who you are, who your Father is, and the promises He has placed on your life.

Remember. The Israelites did it when they were homeless in the desert. Our first martyr of faith, Stephen, did it as he faced death by stoning. The NT writers did it often as they built the Early Church through their letters.

Remembering will stoke the dying embers of your heart.

I leave you with a prayer I wrote for myself that night:

Whatever medical condition I have will not stop it. Bell’s did not stop it. Heartbreak could not stop it. No sickness, no weapon forged against me will stop it. With my Abba, my Jesus, the Spirit with me, nothing can stop me. Nothing will prevail. His will alone prevails.

“…the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:12-13 ESV)

May you find God in new measures in the coming days as you bravely place your whole heart – with its old wounds and new worries alike – into His hands again.

This reflection was adapted from a post on Joanne’s Instagram page and has been republished with permission.