Masks Off
Thursday (November 6)
Masks Off
Psalm 55:22
Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you.
You probably don’t wish to flashback to those early days of Covid-19, when the whole country went on lockdown, schools shut, churches weren’t allowed to meet, and there was a fear that your neighbor might turn you in if you wandered too far out of your backyard (our kids were playing in the cul-de-sac one day and the USPS driver lowered her window and yelled, “Hey kids, GET BACK INSIDE NOW!”). Well, maybe you’ve washed memories like those completely from memory, and for good reason, but let me share something my wife said during that time that provides a wonderful illustration of Psalm 55:22. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and our family prepared to go to Gigi and Poppa’s house for a big dinner, but that morning, the ‘breaking news’ flashed across our screens that North Carolina was under a strict mask mandate wherein all persons needed to wear masks even indoors when gathering with friends and extended family. My wife shared the news with me that morning, venting her frustration, and she finished off the report with a profound spiritual truth: “Well, I’m glad I don’t have to wear a mask before the LORD!”
Just think, friend: even in times as wild as global pandemics, even when access is barred from others, even when we can’t gather in churches and community centers and parks as we normally do, and even when our closest friends and family members seem like they’re as far as the east is from the west, God’s door remains wide open. As Paul so powerfully wrote it in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We go to the very One Who shouldered our cross, Who crawled up Golgotha’s jagged hill with every ounce of strength He could muster, Who didn’t stop till He’d bathed our sorrowing, sin-crushed world with every drop of blood, sweat, and tears His deep heart had to give, and we lay our burdens in His nail-pierced hands, knowing that those hands will never cast us out.