Isolated but inundated, we are harrassed by an invisible, unknowable threat that lurks in any space, every? space we think. A silent, deadly enemy holds sway over emotion, imagination, political leanings, relationships, jobs, experts and fools seemingly devising to separate and annhilate.

While we wait for truth, rescue, wisdom of some kind—any kind, we are overwhelmed by guesses, opinions, statistics and an ever-moving line of truth.

We are overflowing with knowledge, but void of wisdom. There is no clarity as It slithers nearer.

In our separated stress there are chaotic, unordered rulers at odds.

We seek answers and comfort and some insight to put weary minds at rest but their voices become background noise.

Unsettled and afraid, we rage at one another. We shout demands! We voice opinions! We demand our rights and focus on your wrongs.

We were not made for this.

There is no clarity, no relief, no comfort in a deluge of information.

Yet, this is what we wanted, what we insisted we have. 

We can handle it we said. 

This is our right, we demanded.

Knowledge belongs to us.

You don’t want it was the quiet reply.

WE DO!

Now the taste turns the sweet to bitter as the awful realization comes.

We were not made for this. 

The knowledge is now a flood. We find we aren’t able to sort through terabytes of trash to find a bit of truth. 

Now we drown.

The information pours out round-the-clock from every source, every voice, every medium. We can barely slow the flow, much less turn it off. We cannot breathe when we are drowning in the ocean of our own making. Our lungs do not have the capacity. We think we can help one another, but cannot lift our drowning neighbor out of the water we ourselves are sinking in.

Helplessness is maddening. We have put ourselves out front where there is no protection—only exposure, despite the isolation. There is no covering here on our own.

We are pressed down under the weight and struggle to breathe. Whether it is the weight of this deluge of the false, whether it is the weight of the physical like a knee to the back of the neck, whether a culture so full of hate and an utter lack of grace, we can not breathe.

When my daugheter described her own COVID symptoms over the phone, I realized I was gripping it tightly, unnerved over what she’d been through. As she talked, I breathed in, making sure my own chest didn’t rattle. Fearfully I listened knowing that this silent, invisible enemy is working his way nearer, squeezing out breath of any and all along the way. 

Though the enemy is invisible, his attacks are clear and present. This enemy we realize has been here among us FAR longer than anyone thought. This is broader, deeper, more deadly than any of us know.

That knowledge longed for, he convinced us we wanted.

That first second of isolation and separation stemmed from the time he reared his hideous head.

We were consequently quarantined from the garden, a painful separation to ultimately receive rescue. Had we continued on in that deluge of knowledge making permanent our status, we’d never have survived. That isolation was protection to precipitate salvation.

But where is rescue in isolation?

We breathe in the effects of sin and breathe out the anger, sadness, distrust. We made ourselves priority and find we are alone and not strong enough to breathe on our own.

We are chilled by the knowledge. All the information at our feverish fingertips cannot rescue. Dying alone is a condemnation that is our own doing. It is one we cannot bear to face.

We were not made for this.

But this story is not our own.

There is One who faced this lonely moment, pushing up to find breath in lungs crushed.

The sinister slithering enemy was all too pleased. 

A world getting its way—He got what we gave and Love breathed His last alone and battered, broken under the flood of selfishness, self-preservation. 

It is worse than we ever imagined. 

From creation we staked our rights, insisted we go first.

But He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent. 

He was willing to take death so we would never die alone.

The firstborn of creation is the image of the invisible God. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. By Him, through Him, we can see the unseen. 

This attack, this illness, these grave injustices are all overcome at the cross. 

He was made for this.

This is the knowledge we need.

Every word of God proves true. There is no sorting out to get to the truth. 

Everything on heaven and on earth including thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities were created through him and for him. 

The slithering enemy is defeated and we are no longer isolated while we wait as he reconciles all things, making peace by the blood of the cross.

Now we find we can breathe in grace and breathe out love.

 

 

 

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Colossians 1:15-20