Life is full of sweet, sour, and bitter things. Who saw the virus or its decimations coming? Lives gone. Economies eviscerated. Who saw the knee, the cry for breath, and the ensuing riots right behind COVID-19?
We have been handed some sour things in 2020. Where is the sweet? That’s up to you, my friend. You can wallow in the losses and bring the bitterness or you can bring the betterness. (Betterness? Yeah, I know that is not a word. Stop being so pedantic.)
Start with a decision to stop saying you don’t know what to do. This post is going to eliminate that problem. Read on.
COVID-19 Action Plan
Do you know someone that has contracted the virus? Here is what you do: Prayerfully consider what you would want done for yourself. And then do it! Pray for that person. Write them a letter. Call them and tell them you love them and are praying. Bring them groceries and if they refuse put together a care package for them. Put cookies in it. Put toothpaste, dental floss, toys, and whatever else you wish someone would send you if you were sick. Sing to them.
Race Riots Action Plan
Stop learning about the problem through a membrane of homogeneity. You know. Your platform, your ethnic group, your denomination, and your fear of being found out as a racist. I’ve read the gospel. The problem is not your racism or my own. The problem is in the refusal to confess sin, repent, and get on with following Jesus. It is so easy to be dismissive of the other groups… when you don’t take even a minute to get to know them. Is that what Jesus did? No, Jesus follower. He talked with the Samaritan woman. (John writes that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) He ate with the tax collectors and directed His man Philip to share the gospel with a black man (Acts 9). You following me? No? Schedule a lunch with some of the groups you have been condescendingly condemning. Ask questions and do for them what you wish would be done for you in the same situation. Love your neighbor as yourself. Does this make you angry? That’s okay. You can just unfriend me, my friend. You can even block me. But you cannot block the truth. And, by the way, I’m doing my part. I make it my business to get to know every man… black, white, brown, yellow, red, olive, paisley, and plaid.
I listen to my neighbor’s music, read their books, and talk with them. I am trying to understand my neighbor so that I can love him not as I want to (egocentric and arrogant) but in his love language.
Life is giving us limes. But, if we would turn to Jesus in the situation, it could become limeade. Ya dig?
In His grip by His grace,
Roderick L. Barnes, Sr.
Limeade Vendor
P.S. If you are reading this post and feel that you can still justify saying you don’t know what to do… hit me up.