The COVID-19 Magnifying Glass

This pandemic has been like a magnifying glass - amplifying racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities in COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and mortality. In our work, we see its effects nearly every day. Also,  COVID-19 effects everybody despite it's obvious impact on our world's most vulnerable -- domestic violence and mental health issues are at an all-time high irregardless of income level. 

Here's why. Because COVID-19 magnifies what's broken within us. 

Whatever was broken in you before covid, is front and center now. For example, were you lonely before covid? ....now you might feel isolated. Were you a workaholic before covid? ....Now you might feel burnt out. Were you physically unhealthy before covid? Now you're worried about being very susceptible to the virus. COVID-19 magnifies what's broken within us. 

One of the habits we have cultivated as a family for the last 15 years is a weekly saunter (to walk in a slow, relaxed manner, without hurry or effort) in the mountains. One (of many) reasons we value its importance is because we know that this weekly act of worship is healing something broken within us. We truly believe the cumulative effect of years of prayerfully walking in beautiful places have cultivated our renewal. 

COVID-19 magnifies what's broken within us but prayerfully walking heals our wounds.

So today....as so many days before, we walked. We walked slowly, prayerfully, joyfully....stopping to see beauty and proclaim it's goodness in front of our children. We participated in the healing God IS doing in each of our lives during these difficult times. 

These are good days.

How do you worship?

If you'd like to see more of these 1MM's on lots of other topics visit our YouTube page or our Facebook page!  Thanks for watchin' !!

Romans 12: 1-5

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true
worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's
will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say
to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but
rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God
has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many
members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we,
though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others

True worship of God comes from responding to the mercy God has shown us. God is concerned with our entire person when it comes to worship. This response is both physical (e.g. using our bodies in acts of service and holiness) and mental (e.g. renewing our minds). The result is a transformed life that knows and lives according to God’s will. In other words, the Apostle Paul is concerned here with each of us having a right view of ourselves and each other. Pride is one of the greatest threats to unity in the body of Christ, for it leads to division, judgment, condemnation, and a false self-esteem. Thus, Paul calls us to view ourselves in the right way:

1) as people who have been graced by God with faith and
2) as members of one body in Christ with different, yet equally important, functions.

Aim for true worship.