Though shelves are empty…

WE ARE ON THE RAZOR’S EDGE OF APOCALYPSE, it seems. We can fall back to normalcy or we can tumble into chaos.

It’s scary what this coronavirus is doing to our country and to the world.

More than scary. This is a fast-forward nightmare come to life in the bright of day.

Nations could fail, ours among them. Already, we can see jobs collapsing one upon the other, like dominoes clicking down a line.

Whether we live or die as one nation under God may depend on choices we are making today.

Regardless, we remain God’s people.

About 2,600 years ago, the Jewish nation teetered on the razor’s edge. Invaders from what is now Iraq were coming. They would erase the Jewish nation from the world map and deport survivors.

One prophet knew it. He wrote about it in what has become one of my favorite songs in the Bible. He wrote these lyrics as Hebrew poetry, in the cadence of a drummer and the passion of the doomed.

“When I heard this, I started shaking all over.
→My lips quivered.
My legs gave way.
→All I could do was lie there and shake.
I wait now for the day inevitable,
→for the people who wake to invade.

When our fig trees don’t blossom
→And our grapes don’t grow on the vine
When our olive crops disappear
→And our fields produce nothing but dirt
When our sheep have been taken
→And cattle are gone from their stalls

After all of that, I will thank God.
He is my Savior.

The Lord God himself gives me strength.
He puts the sure-footed speed of a deer in my feet
→and he leads me on to a higher place than this.”

Habakkuk 3:16-19, Casual English Bible

The last words of the Federal Express driver when he handed me a box yesterday: “Stay safe.”

I remembered it, and washed my hands. I would have forgotten otherwise. Life on the razor’s edge of apocalypse is new to me.

Last word for today

On the razor’s edge, waiting with us is God. Whether we tip to normalcy or chaos, God tips with us.

Let’s tip to normalcy. Stay safe.

And with God watching, let him see us putting others first…and not taking the last can on the shelf unless we have to. God will let us know when we have to. His Spirit speaks. His servants listen.

Peace to you. Each one hunkered down or out there risking yourself for the rest of us.

Casual English Bible
Bible Gateway