If we take God’s way and our way is Moshiach Yeshua and we are truly moving in it then we will definitely grow. There are different ways for our spiritual growth, to be noticed, and if the growth is really happening then it will be noticed! However, is there is a lot of movement without any spiritual progress? If so, this means the movement has no point and we are spiritually stagnant. We should keep in mind two things:

• The spiritual world has no stagnation. It never happens there. When we don’t move forward, it means we actually are rolling back.
• No one ends up being stagnant by surprise. The stagnation gets onto us slowly, almost unnoticed and gradually. The life of a believer has dangerous stagnation-sensitive seasons. But the stagnation threat to a congregation, church, denomination, or entire people is even more dangerous.

Currently, we live in a time of global stagnation. During the pandemic, especially in times of lockdown, the fear of death, disease, and of other people causes people to get distant from each other. Many people are detached from their communities. “Isolation” and “distance” have become common words. But true believers don’t have difficulty with that because the two main commandments are still applied during quarantine:

“…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)
“…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)

If your life is about serving God and serving others then the stagnation will be less likely to affect you.

Comfort or thirst?

When brothers and sisters from our congregation and from other churches and congregations found themselves in temporary isolation, they felt quite uncomfortable about it, but in time some of them got used to it and now they feel much better. Yes, special categories of people should do their best during the quarantine to not get infected with the disease, and may be constrained to isolate.

We should check ourselves to see if our thirst for fellowship with brothers and sisters, for corporate prayers, and for direct ministry to each other grows or ceases during the quarantine. We need to be honest with God, our mentors, and ourselves. When believers stop meeting personally, they rarely speak on the phone with each other, they rarely share what goes on in their lives, their experiences, pains, and results of their prayer; when believers are so comfortable staying at home that they find it hard to return to their previous life-rhythms and fellowships; when life without congregations becomes a norm and there is no desire to have fellowship with our brothers and sisters – these are all red flags.

David’s formula

"I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” (Psalm, 16:3)

The Bible says that David had delight in having fellowship with the children of God. And that’s what the children of God are to have! But because of the lockdown believers don’t want to live the way they used to. And it only gets worse. In time believers (even if they can) don’t really want to be involved in the congregation’s on-goings, prayer meetings and eventually their life with God gets shorter. So we need to do our best in throwing spiritual logs on the fire of thirst for the living God!

“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm, 42:2)
“My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You. In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory” (Psalm, 63:1-2)

David’s soul cried out, his heart was torn when he was on the run in the wilderness for a few years and he had two desires. One of them is in accord with the first commandment “I want to get closer to the living God, to go into the Temple (Tabernacle)! I want to be where God is moving, where His glory is demonstrated in a special way, where the pillar of His invisible fire is! I want to enter this fire!” And the second desire was “I find delight in the saints, my brothers, and sisters! I want to be with my people, with those who run to the mercy seat, worshipping there, being thirsty for God, crying out to Him, praying, proclaiming His Word, and being immersed in His presence! I want to be with those who hold the God of Israel dear!”

He was a great king, a prophet of God, an anointed one - one of a kind! The Messiah is called his son forever! But he desired, he was thirsty. He went to the wilderness willingly, yet he grieved for the Lord’s sanctuary, the meeting place, so much: “I want to be at least by the door of the meeting place of the children of God. I need no wealth, no fame. The living God – I am thirsty for Him! The people of God – I am thirsty for them, I find delight in them, I can’t live without them!”

We can walk the wilderness of the pandemics and of the quarantine as David did and after the time in the wilderness, he got the kingdom. Or we can go through it like our ancestors from Egypt did, they stuck there never leaving it. Let us not get used to isolation, distance, and quarantine. Let us not get used to the fleshy comfort that drags us and makes us like frozen frogs – they spend winter in the swamp and don’t notice how they turn into icicles.

©Boris Grisenko, the Senior Rabbi of KJMC