Do You Believe? The Cure for Your Coronavirus Fears

I’m giving away a free print copy of the appropriately-themed novel, Outbreak, to one of you! Leave a comment below to enter the giveaway! Also, I’m going to send out free printable fear-fighting Scripture cards to my newsletter subscribers later this week. If you want printable Fear Warrior Weapon cards and you aren’t yet a subscriber, you can get the cards by signing up for my newsletter here or at the bottom of this page!

Nearly everywhere we look right now, we can see the presence of fear. You may feel fear clinging to you and your loved ones as you’re cloistered up somewhere together or as you’re on the front lines of fighting COVID-19 or ministering to others.

But what surprises me is how often Christians are betraying the same fear as everyone else. Sometimes they’re merely sharing disappointments or frustrations on social media. Other times, they’re voicing fear over themselves or their loved ones potentially contracting this deadly coronavirus strain. The fears related to this crisis are many and varied.

Christians, however, should be different. We should be fearless in the face of COVID-19 and its ramifications. Yet, I know I often fail to have courage instead of fear now, just as I did in my daily life before the pandemic.

I say I believe in God, but something is missing. The great theologian R. C. Sproul helped me identify the problem and solution to my fear. As he shared in several of his teaching series, even Satan and the demons believe in God. That is, they believe He exists and even that He is Who He says He is.

Non-Christians sometimes believe in God, too, acknowledging His existence.

But it’s quite a different matter to believe God. To believe what He says. To believe Who He is. To believe Him.

Do you believe God? If you struggle with fear, like I do, that’s a symptom that you—at least in that moment—are harboring some unbelief.

A time of crisis like we’re in strips away the coverings—the busyness, distraction, the worldly pursuits and successes—that we normally use to hide our anxiety and ignore our underlying unbelief.

So, as we’re here now, with our fears exposed by a pandemic, we have a choice to make. Will we allow fear to continue to control our lives, perhaps now more than ever?

Or will we root out the unbelief in our hearts and choose instead to believe God?

I want peace, hope, and courage during this time and for the rest of my days. I want to beat my fear, now and forever. So, I need to look inward and find the areas where I am not believing God.

Here’s a checklist to help you do the same:

1. Do You Believe God Is in Control?

R. C. Sproul famously posed this truth: if there is even one “maverick molecule” in the universe, then God cannot possibly guarantee any of the results, promises, and outcomes He says He can in Scripture.

If there is one maverick molecule, then God is not sovereign. And if God is not sovereign, He is not God.

It’s easy to forget this truth, isn’t it? Especially when bad things happen, I often fear the fallout and forget God is still in control. Even of this, even now.

But He is in control. Always. During a pandemic and during the life of ease and comfort most of us had just months ago.

God is sovereign over all of this.

There’s no way this coronavirus and ALL the effects of it could have happened without God allowing it to happen.

COVID-19 is in God’s control. God is sovereign over this virus and all that is to come.

Repeat that truth to yourself as many times as it takes for you to believe it. Better yet, immerse yourself in Scripture passages like Job 38-39 (or the whole book of Job, if you have time).

Do you believe God is in control? Then live like it.

2. Do You Believe This Is Better?

This truth is harder for many of us to believe, but it goes hand in hand with all the other truths in this list.

When our plans are upset and changed, when life doesn’t go the way we expected and were counting on (sound familiar right now?), we’re disappointed. We’re frustrated. We complain and mourn.

But those emotions are like blaring sirens that should alert us to an area of unbelief in our hearts.

A friend recently wrote in an email a truth that struck me to the core. She shared, “He is more glorified by my present situation than by what I would like my life to look like.”

She’s right. God is more glorified by the working out of His plan in our lives than if we somehow got our own way instead.

But, thankfully, God guarantees He will always work out His plan, not ours. And He adds another sweet promise to that—that His plan is ultimately for the good of those who love Him!

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. – Jeremiah 29:11

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

Do you believe whatever you’re going through right now is and will be better than your own plans? Then live like it.

3. Do You Believe Suffering Is Never for Nothing?

Scripture is clear that since God is in control of everything and promises to use even evil for good, then suffering is never for nothing.

There is always a purpose—and a good one—in suffering. Sometimes that purpose is to bring people to God, whether for the first time or as a Christian who needs to draw closer to the Father. And, as this passage shows, suffering also reveals the greatness of God’s mercy and love to His children.

Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. – Nehemiah 9:27

In the lives of believers, suffering produces wonderful things, including growth in strength, hope, and godliness:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. – James 1:2-4

And, in the future to come, we have this promise of even greater reward:

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. – James 1:12

Whatever suffering you or your loved ones are facing now because of COVID-19, do you believe God that suffering is never for nothing? Then live like it.

4. Do You Believe God Will Keep His Promises?

The fix for all the weak spots in our belief that we’ve covered here depends on God’s promises. Believing God comes down to believing His promises, as revealed to us in His Word, the Bible.

But what if you don’t really believe those promises? Maybe you want some sort of guarantee so you can know God can be believed. So you can know without a doubt that the promises He makes—some of which seem too good to be true—are really going to be fulfilled.

That He will remain true to His word and make good on His promises, not just now in this life but for all eternity.

We need to know that God has both the ability to fulfill His promises and the reliability to do so.

We’ve already talked about the truth of His sovereignty—that gives us the assurance He is able to keep all His promises, because everything in the universe, outside the universe, and time itself is in His control.

But will He keep His promises? What’s stopping Him from changing His mind?

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. – Hebrews 6:13-20

God has sworn these promises to us, too, simply by stating them in His Word. He has sworn by Himself—a perfect, holy being in Whom there is no deceit and no shadow of turning.

As if knowing God cannot lie is not enough of a guarantee, we also have Jesus Christ. God wouldn’t have sacrificed His beloved, only Son, and Jesus wouldn’t have volunteered for the worst suffering anyone has ever experienced only to change the plan afterward.

When Jesus breathed His last on the cross, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). What Jesus accomplished there—paying the penalty for our sins—and when He rose from the grave, conquering death, can never be unfinished or undone.

Do you believe these guarantees that God will keep His promises? Then live like it.

THE SOURCE OF BELIEF

If we do believe God, it’s not to our credit. We’re only believing what should be believed. We’re only believing the truth. We’re believing Him Who is infinitely believable. There’s nothing we can pat ourselves on the back for in that.

But because we’re so caught up in our sinful nature and the lies we believe, we don’t want to believe the obvious truth. So, when we do believe God, that belief comes from God Himself, enabling us to believe despite our sinful nature (Eph. 2:8).

If you, like I do, struggle in some areas to believe God, falling into fear instead, then ask God for help with that unbelief (Mark 9:24). He is mighty to save and will remind you of the many reasons we have to believe Him.

Do you believe God? Then let’s live like it, during COVID-19 and for the rest of our days.

In what areas do you struggle to fully believe God? What is God teaching you about your fears and relationship with Him during the pandemic? Please share, and let’s spread courage instead of fear!

*If you want some daily help beating your fears, sign up for my newsletter to receive free printable cards with fear-fighting Scripture verses. You can keep these cards by your bedside or take them in your purse (when we’re free to move about again) so you have daily, constant reminders of the truth we have to wield against fear. You can sign up here or at the bottom of this page. (I’ll be sending the printable cards to subscribers this week!)

Photos by visuals, Tonik, Markus Spiske, Pille-Riin Priske, Han Chenxu, and Hugo Fergusson on Unsplash. Original graphics designed by Jerusha Agen.

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I’m giving away one free print copy of Davis Bunn’s novel, Outbreak, to one of you! To enter the drawing, simply leave a comment below! (Giveaway ends April 13, 2020; winner must have continental U. S. mailing address.)

OUTBREAK

The waters off the West African coast are a menacing red, full of algae thick enough to stand on in places. In nearby villages, mysterious deaths start to occur—and the panic mounts. But before an alarm can be sounded, the sea currents shift, the algae vanishes, and the deaths stop. Everyone is relieved when things return to normal, and local government officials are happy to sweep the publicity nightmare under a rug.

An American biological researcher, Avery Madison, is dispatched by his employer to piece together exactly what happened, having long feared an ecological disaster just like this could occur. He’s had little evidence to go on before now, and what he finds in West Africa is rapidly disappearing. But Avery knows the danger hasn’t disappeared—it has just moved on.

When parts of the Caribbean start turning a familiar red right before hurricane season kicks into high gear, the implications are clear. If Avery and his colleagues can’t convince the world of what’s about to happen, toxic destruction could be loosed on American soil. Will their efforts prove too late?