“for those who love God”
Romans 8:28

My customers are small businesses that are involved with cars. Our country’s reaction to the pandemic has shut driving down, so, therefore, most of my customer’s business has dried up. They have been significantly hurt by social distancing. All businesses have. Big, small, and every company in between.

Everyone has their opinions about business, especially business owners. Some have more money than most. Others don’t have much at all. In fact, more business owners than you think would make more money personally if they WORKED for a company like theirs rather than owned it. That’s right. You may not know that, but it’s true.

Certainly, no business has the wealth to sustain them long in an environment like this without making big changes. It’s simply a matter of survival. Quite frankly, businesses are no different than most people – they live paycheck to paycheck. Sure, they may have access to some debt (then again, maybe not), but that isn’t the answer. And, no, businesses don’t have a mountain of cash in the back room. So, the options are few. Spend the little cash on hand, borrow money, or make radical changes. It’s that simple.

Pretty depressing, isn’t it? Since this COVID-19 stuff started, 22 MILLION people have lost their jobs. In four weeks. Our nation has never seen anything like this. Never. The hard truth is that the longer this goes on, the longer it will take to recover. Many businesses won’t. Many. That means many jobs won’t, either. Don’t kid yourselves about government programs. Politicians are not our knights in shining armor. Welfare checks won’t keep this ship floating.

What’s the solution? Drop the social distancing orders and let everyone go back to their lives. Sure, we’ll need to protect those who are especially vulnerable to the disease but do that by isolating them and not everybody. We are isolating them now, so why are we shutting the entire nation (and world) in the process?

Naysayers will accuse me of being heartless. So be it. I’m entitled to my opinion just as they are. It’s a free country still, isn’t it?

Even so, there is a bigger picture. Financial wealth and the security that comes with it are important if that’s all there is in life. Same goes with health. If my life is simply the time on earth between the day I was born and the day I die, then wealth and health might very well be at the tops of my priority list. I want to have “quality of life.” However, as we have seen in just a few weeks, both are fleeting. Our ability to hang on to either is very limited. Oh, sure, we can tend to our financial portfolios and our physical bodies, but we have no control over things that are beyond our control.

But is that all there is to life? Is it over the day I die?

One day, we’ll all know. Well, actually, if it is all over, we won’t know because it will be over. But almost all of us (9 out of 10) think there is some sort of life after death. Only 1 in 10 don’t. So, it pays to examine this. Well, let’s be honest, we can ignore it and hope for the best, but that’s like hoping a rotting tooth gets better. Or like the realization that we’re old and saved nothing for retirement. Putting one’s head in the sand is a reaction but leaves one in constant anxiety.

What about those who HAVE thought this life after death thing through? Frankly, none of us know with certainty what will happen after we die. Sure, there are stories of people coming back from the dead, but so many of these have been frauds that they can’t be trusted. Yet, all religions have an explanation of what happens after we die.

Who do you believe? The Hindus and Buddhists who say we are caught up in a seemingly unending cycle of reincarnation? The Muslims who say God will judge based upon our actions while here on earth? The Christians who claim heaven is for those who believe in Jesus? Or like most people who think we able to create a personalized life after death based upon what we think it should be?

The bible teaches us that no one will follow the true and living God apart from the gospel and that not everyone who hears will accept it. Truth be told, most who claim to be Christians are doing so only because it is human nature to want to belong to a group, not because they actually believe the underlying doctrine.

But to some, the gospel message sinks deep and radically changes them. Radically. These are the people who look at life different than they once did. These are the people to say they no longer fear death. Or poverty. Or loss of freedom. Why? Because they are looking to something beyond this world, something they don’t understand but are convinced of its reality. These are the people who can lose everything yet understand this:

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

This verse is nonsense to the world; but for those who believe, it is like chicken soup for the soul.

Father, send workers into the harvest. Amen.

Copyright © 2020 Scott Powers