While the world is paralyzed under a pandemic, I was reflecting on the worry I’ve battled for years — that balls up in my belly on occasion like a heavy starch, and looms on the horizon like an enemy aircraft, in which the shape continues to emerge, not recede, with burgeoning clarity.

Because the world and I have different worries.

I was imagining how it would be if I posted articles and sent texts and obsessed over my concern like the rest of the culture is broadcasting covid-19. It wouldn’t take long for friends and family alike to tune me out, perhaps gently or angrily admonish my evident paranoia. Fellow Christians would comfort me with platitudes about faith over fear; gently remonstrate the need to live our lives.

The reality of a culture that has lost nearly all its righteous fear of the Lord, thanks to a compromised church that cares more about what men think than the Sovereign Lord, is far deadlier and more frightening than any disease.

Isn’t it?

If this is true, than why are Christians not sensible to this? Why do we pretend a virus is more damaging and deserves more of our energy and relentless focus than the unthinkable effects of a diseased society?

Or does it not merit sustained horror that my children are growing up in a world in which pedophilia is being normalized? What is a right reaction to a culture in which we can no longer watch family-friendly television because of the licentious agendas being thrown in our faces? When my daughters’ peers tell me they’re battling anxiety and suicidal thoughts and they’re eleven years old, and I learn from counselors that this is mainstream in the public schools, is that a cause for concern? When I read of another young person I know overdosing, should I not take it hard?

When an award-winning British sociologist, who happens to be gay, conducts a study on the effects of the Islamisation of the West, and concludes that within our lifetime, an entire generation will be without their homelands, does anyone bat an eye?  Should we not be fearful that the God-given liberties our forefathers enjoyed and paid dearly for are eroding? What if, in fact, I beat the drum of the realities of Socialism and its now normalization by our media like they megaphone the coronavirus?

Let’s, in fact, for a moment switch out the effects of Socialism for covid-19:

• It’s a global epidemic
• Millennials are seemingly indifferent to its destructive effects and acting like it’s nothing to fear
• It’s already responsible for the deaths of millions

But Socialism, we’re told by our media, is something to be embraced, not dreaded by anyone with reason.  Its effects will be different in this country than everywhere else it’s played out in the world. (Remember the definition of insanity?)

And then there’s this sobering reality: the leading cause of death worldwide in 2019 took the lives of 42 millions individuals — 42 million. And it was completely preventable.

In all of this, I can hear the Accuser of the Brethren saying I’m insensitive and not aware of or making light of what’s going on around of me. What if, however, I’m sensitive to what Christ warned us to be aware of?

What if Jesus meant what He said to the paralytic He healed, when He warned him that his sin was more deadly than his disease. “See to it that something worse doesn’t happen to you.” What if, in fact, I applied the same logic people are using to the virus to what I’m seeing. “No, I’m not trying to fuel worry; however, I am educating myself and in doing so, there are some stark scientific realities before my eyes.”

Jesus said there were worse things that could come upon a man than lying sick and paralyzed for 38 years.

He told us, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

Maybe He meant what He said.