The psalms often speak against ‘enemies’ and often plead for God’s protection against these enemies. Our biggest enemy today is the coronavirus pandemic which is threatening lives everywhere. So, replace ‘They’ in this verse with ‘It’ and it becomes a plea for protection against the ‘enemy’ coronavirus. (My Logos/Faithllife software provides me with many illustrated Bible verses.) Ultimately, every prayer to God is about life. Jesus came to give us life and give it abundantly: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) The coronavirus is a thief that comes to destroy our lives, our livelihoods, and even our faith. But Christ came to give us life and give it abundantly! No limits to the gift of life that comes from God.
May the Lord give Life now to us – not just physical life, but spiritual and mental and emotional life, so we can endure and enter the post-virus future with renewed faith and renewed commitment to each other and to all Life on the planet. The time to re-examine how we treat life on this planet will come soon enough. Will we continue to mistreat people? Will we continue to abuse animals? Make no mistake about it. Most of the recent deadly viruses – including the current coronavirus – originated in animals mistreated by humans for profit, as for example in the ‘wet’ market of Wuhan, China, where the current virus most likely originated. Animals share our lives on this planet. They have no mean motives against us – only humans are mean to each other. We are all in this together: humans, animals, plant life, the life of our planet itself.
The New York Times printed a very informative article yesterday about our mistreatment of animals and how that contributes to the spread of a virus like the current one. Read the article by clicking here. I hope it’s one of the articles the NYT makes available for free during this time of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Psalm verse says “Give me life” because it is the prayer of one person. We need to translate this verse to encompass all life, because we are interconnected. Whatever we do to animals or to the plant life or the atmosphere and waters of our planet will come back to hurt us. There are huge fears in the medical community that because of the wide use of antibiotics on animals that are herded close together, we may reach a point where antibiotics will become useless in treating diseases in humans! Those are scary prospects. While governments around the world worry about restarting the economy, we should also be re-examining how we treat the sources and nourishment of life. How will we move into the future? That is the question that hangs over all humanity at this moment in history.
May the Lord of mercy and life GIVE US LIFE! Real life, authentic life, life abundant! Life that keeps to the precepts and commandments of our saving and nurturing God. We need our Savior’s guiding hand more than ever. Let’s make the most of this Holy Week, to share in the passion of our Lord. Not only the passion of his suffering and death on the Cross; but his passion for us, to give us life and to sustain our lives through all dangers. MAY CHRIST’S LIFE PREVAIL OVER COVID-19!
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