As the days of sheltering in place turn into months, people’s patience is wearing thin. While the numbers of this pandemic are bad, they don’t appear to be catastrophic. So, an increasing number of people are questioning whether it makes sense to stay in quarantine when there seem to be other worse catastrophes looming. The problem is, as several experts stated at the beginning of the quarantine, if these preventative measures are successful, they will appear to have been an overreaction.
Obviously, millions of people are being impacted financially by this shutdown, and it’s understandable that they’d want to get back to work. But, just because businesses reopen doesn’t mean that everything is going to be magically fixed. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of people are nervous about reopening things too soon; they won’t be rushing back to shop and spend money in the same way that they did before. In fact, research has shown that reopening too soon, without proper testing and protective equipment widely available is going to lead to a vast increase of cases and deaths – which will make the economy far worse than it is now. But, it is often difficult for us to see the big picture.
Thankfully we have a God who sees the big picture. There are times when we face a problem that has a solution that is obvious to us, but God doesn’t seem to acknowledge that solution. Instead the problem seems to get worse and we wonder if God knows what He’s doing, or even cares. But this is why we are called to have faith, to trust that God’s ways are better than our ways because He knows the beginning from the end. “Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his wisdom and knowledge and riches! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods!” (Romans 11:33). Let us always place our trust in our wise and wonderful God!