The Illusion of Safety

We live in a day where safety has become a daily concern. Slogans such as "Stay safe, stay home." are flashed across all forms of media, and debates rage over what measures we should be taking to ensure our own safety and that of those around us. Masks or no masks? Quarantine inside or getting out in the sunshine? Open up or stay closed? Arguments abound, but no one seems to be able to come to a sound consensus.

A news article about a White House staff member's recent Coronavirus diagnosis posed the question,

"If Coronavirus is in the White House, is anyone really safe?"

The truth is, the idea of safety is an illusion. At least, from a human point of view. There is no sure-fire way of keeping ourselves protected from Coronavirus, cancer, car accidents, airplane crashes, or simply tripping over our own feet and sustaining significant injury.

Sounds pretty hopeless, huh?

On a human level, it is. We can never ensure 100% that we will be safe or healthy, or that our friends and loved ones will be so. There will always be the possibility of illness or accident, always the possibility that the next breath we take will be our last.

So where is the hope in all this? Proverbs 21:31 reminds us that

"The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the Lord."

So yes, we should eat our veggies and wash our hands. We should follow the guidelines set out by medical professionals that are working so hard to find new ways to combat disease, but we should also remember that all this is vain if we are not looking to the Lord to keep us safe.

We must also bear in mind that God's idea of safety may not match our own. We like to be left alone in our own little world, with things exactly the way we want them, but God's desire is not to make us comfortable; it is to make us more like Him. So, "safety" might mean taking away something that is hindering your relationship with Him. It may look like plunging you into the midst of sorrow, so you can find that He is your true source of comfort. It may even look like allowing illness or injury to get your eyes off the distractions in life and back onto Him.

Whatever God allows, we can be sure that if we have accepted Christ's payment for our sins, we are God's children, and as such, whatever happens to us must first pass through the filter of God's loving care.