As I scroll the edge
of my social media world,
I find myself disheartened—
deluged by death.
Pleading posts flood my feed:
Family members, friends,
begging for prayers
for their family members, friends.
I have heard their refusals—
the obstinate denial of science,
the rejection of numbers,
the clinging to crafted misinformation.
Even now,
facing the death of loved ones,
they still bang out the rhetoric—
party lines,
religious manifestos,
despite the mountain of proof.
And still, I pray.
I hold to my faith in God.
But something is intermingled:
there is anger in my sadness.
Why am I angry, you ask?
Because I have listened
to your inane declarations—
“It must be God’s will,”
you say,
when your loved ones die
having refused rescue.
There is a difference between
what God knows will happen
and what God wants to happen.
His Word is clear:
It is not His will that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
Still, the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night.
But until that day,
God has sent remedies—
gifts among His people:
measures to protect,
wisdom to shield,
science born of God-given knowledge.
And yet His people refuse to see
the abundance of His grace
in the rescue offered
by human hands He formed
and minds He inspired.
What glory has God
in needless death?
In believers and non-believers alike
brought low?
Even now—
as the virus mutates,
as hospitals fill again,
as bodies fall daily in every nation—
still, they cling to the failed rhetoric,
the banner of the failed rescue.
“Faith over fear,”
they cry,
their voices enfeebled
by lungs drowning in virus.
I do not question God’s power,
nor cast dispersion on His name.
He is Jehovah Rapha—
the God who heals.
He is miraculous.
He is faithful.
I believe in faith beyond fear.
But I also believe
in the many ways
He works to protect His children.
Some days,
He comes in signs and wonders.
Other days,
He comes through healing hands.
Still others,
He comes through medicine—
the marvel of minds He made.
None of these
is less miraculous
than the other.
© Ron Simpson Jr.
