Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that COVID is no longer a global health emergency. If so, what have we learned so far from the pandemic? Hopefully, a lot of good and excellent things.
I like what Dr. Vinaflor Realista pointed out: she discovered more about herself and reflected deeper on her spirituality, particularly her relationship with God during lockdowns. Indeed, in moments of rupture, crisis, and distress, when everything we took for granted suddenly seemed up in the air, we were given an opportunity to take stock and reassess. The lockdown cut back the radius of our actions and deprived us of many of our usual interactions.
Like the man who crash-landed in a desert in the book “The Little Prince,” we were able to take a fresh look at our lives and the lives of those around us and came to grips with what is really important, necessary, and of eternal value; that really, there are many things we can live without and (at the risk of oversimplification) only a few things really matter—God, His Word, people or relationships, and our eternal destiny. Hopefully, we will cherish and retain these realizations even if we are now in the ‘post-pandemic’ era.
So, what now? Will we, too, look at the world differently once the pandemic has passed? Or will we return to the routines and habits that defined our worlds before?
Or should we take heed of the reminder during this morning’s devotional shared by David, which was taken from God’s word,
“Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life” — Proverbs 4:23
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye” (from the book The Little Prince).
I pray that we will never look at the world again with the same eyes as before, knowing that to see truly is not a matter of physical activity but of the heart.
