People of Grace in a World of Pandemic

If COVID-19 and the tenor of public discourse that has surrounded it has displayed anything to us, it is the reality that two people (or 100 people or 300 million people) can experience the same set of circumstances and walk away with vastly different impressions.

- One person first heard of COVID-19 and thought it would be terrible; another heard of the same virus and gave it hardly a thought.

- One person thought staying home was essential; another thought staying home was silly and unnecessary.

- One person experienced their home as a place of safety and control; another came to view it as a place of entrapment and confinement.

- One person sees a mask as a simple act of care and kindness; another sees it as an infringement on their personal choice and freedom.

- One person thinks everything should be wide open and everyone can make their own decisions; another thinks we should go slowly and collectively curb our freedoms for a greater good.

- One person thinks the media is lying, overhyping, creating panic; another thinks the media is doing their job by reporting the information that is available to the best of their ability.

- One person views the government as overstepping and potentially up to no good; another sees it as working to protect and care for people.

- As creatures who inherently look to ascribe meaning to all that happens to us, one person finds meaning in the way humanity is loving, serving, and caring for one another during this season; another finds meaning in theories that strung together series of events, linking them in order to paint a picture of how and why we ended up here; a third finds meaning in a sovereign God who often mysteriously works the events of our world together for purposes we cannot see.

- One person finds working from home to be productive and freeing; another finds it to be difficult and cumbersome.

- One parent enjoys having the kids home for schooling; another parent loves their kids, but has a newfound admiration for their kids’ teachers. Seriously, big S/O to teachers. You wonderful humans.

We could fill in an almost limitless number of examples that deal only with the last few months of life in a COVID-19 world, but the reality is that this is the case with most of our life experience. Two people can experience the same thing and come away with wildly different impressions.

The issue is not that our impressions are unimportant.

The issue is that our pride often lures us into thinking that our impressions are most important.

If nothing else, this season ought to remind us to hold objective truth tightly while holding our personal preferences, impressions, and opinions loosely. Too often, we decide that our personal opinions are the hills that we're willing to die on. When it comes time to talk about objective truth, we've damaged the feelings, exhausted the relationships, worn out the ears, and run off the presence of those we were hoping would listen.

Being people of grace demands being people who are discerning about when, where, and how we plant our flags. I pray this season has taught us all a little more about what is and what isn't worth dying over. The important stuff - particularly the eternally important stuff - matters too much to spoil the message by making mountains out of molehills and oceans out of puddles.

By all means, form an impression, have an opinion. Let’s just be aware enough to know when an impression is simply an impression, when opinion is simply opinion.

Then let’s be gracious enough to act accordingly.