7. Welcome to day 7 of our 4 week prayer adventure!

“Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear.” John 18:10 It was a very tense time, a crisis, as Jesus was being betrayed by Judas, in the dark of the night. In this crisis, notice how Peter responded. He drew his sword and injured a man. One could argue he was being courageous yet, as we learn from Jesus’ response that it was entirely inappropriate. After this Peter and the disciples ran for their lives and then later, Peter even denies knowing Jesus three times. In this very stressful situation, Peter responded poorly a number of times.

One thing a crisis does is that it reveals a person’s true character. I have seen lately, normally happy people become snippy and blunt, others having almost a nervous breakdown and others become quite angry and impatient. A crisis will reveal what you truly believe about God, your life and yourself. It reveals who you are.

Thus, a good question for each of us would be: what do you see in yourself? Do you like what you see? Are there some changes you might need to make? Self-leadership is very important right now.

Also, in these times of change, you see what people think of change. Some are nimble, flexible, they embrace change; these are usually younger folks but not always. Others go to the other end and resist and dislike change. They don’t want anything to change, they would rather die than change; they just want to get back to normal as soon as possible.

After this coronavirus crisis, we will probably land somewhere in the middle of the above two positions. Changes are coming. I admit I was resisting this at first, I didn’t want things to change; but the Lord is showing me to trust Him. As I said yesterday, the Lord probably doesn’t want us to go back to normal. Our culture’s ‘normal’ was on a downhill moral slide and something had to happen to try to get people’s attention. And this applies to God’s church as well.

Peter eventually ends up responding very well, as Jesus had prayed earlier that he would. He became humble, sorry for his bad behavior, was teachable and willing to change. The Lord was very patient with him and then restored him to fellowship with God and his brothers and restored him to his position. I am glad the Lord is also very patient with us. In these tough days, as many people are responding in weird ways, let us be patient with others too.