“Ever since the day of Adam’s fall, we’ve been required to surrender all. Yet so often before our morals wake, I accept the apple from the snake.” Lyric by Daniel L.

Sixteen-year-old Caleb came home from youth group and exclaimed, “Mom! Guess what! Daniel, Mike, Jeral, and I are going to start a band! We already have the name: Divinticus Vecordia. (Divine Insanity) All we have to do is learn to play instruments!

I laughed at his excitement. “That’s great!” I exclaimed in spite of my doubts. My tall lanky son, so innocent. So naïve. Nobody told him musicians become a band after years of practice and experience. Nobody told these boys they couldn’t do it. They had a seed drop in their hearts, and practices began within the week.

God can use anyone, qualified or not, to do His will. Even the rocks will cry out to worship Him if we won’t!

The boys started meeting together at the church. Daniel picked up a bass, Mike and Jeral started learning guitar. Caleb (who as a three-year-old determined he wanted to grow up to be a rhinoceros because they played the drums in the animated Robin Hood), started practicing on the drum set at church.

In the Bible, David witnessed the enemy of God taunting and teasing the Israelites. He was not a seasoned warrior, but God dropped the seed in his heart. This Giant who dared mock his God was no match for a faith-filled boy, filled with courage and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is full of stories of unlikely people being used in “superhero” ways. Regular people like Gideon who was hiding from the Midianites and an angel addressed him as a “mighty man of courage”. God directed him to take a reduced army (32,000 strong to 300 men) to fight the entire Midianite army. Jonah ran away from God when He told him to go to Nineveh, but after three days in the belly of a fish, he found the courage to obey God. And then we have the men Jesus chose as disciples, what a motley crew: fishermen, tax collectors, even a zealot (who was similar to a conspiracy theorist or someone who challenged the ruling authorities, his zealous ways were now directed to following Jesus). And most famous of all, Mary, the mother of Jesus; just a maiden girl. She didn’t have the credentials you would expect for someone to raise the Son of God, but God chose her and she courageously embraced the commission, and just look what happened!

Before long, Divinticus Vecordia was starting to come together. A flute player joined the group, securing the perfect sound they had hoped for. They wrote their own music and the lyrics were profound, and they sounded pretty good! They finally had their first concert at the church, and the kids in the youth group jumped and danced to their songs like they were at a professional concert. Divinticus Vecordia was on its way to stardom.

Sometimes we venture into a stage in life because there was a seed dropped. We might have no idea what will become of that seed, but we moved obediently in the direction God was leading.

I know this year has been an unprecedented year, one filled with so many uncertainties. We now live in a world where some of our neighbors fear for their lives, while others are fed up and just want the world to be normal again. The divide between the belief system has separated us racially, politically, medically, mask or no mask, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, and with all the theories out there of “what is really happening”, we can only seek God’s direction for our families and pray for the world.

Did God drop the idea of homeschooling in your heart? Sure, you might not feel qualified, but you are the parent! You got this!

Did you feel that you needed to send your children to school? You got this! It’s all right! God can handle that! He will help your children navigate through the new demands in school.

We might all be in this together, but we are all feeling it at differing levels. Babies and toddlers feel the security or insecurity portrayed by their parents. The youth have experienced something that none of their parents or grandparents ever experienced. Schools who were reluctant to close for a snow-day closed their doors for months.

Young adults have been isolated. Many senior citizens have been kept from their loved ones. Some jobs require employees to stay away from gatherings because they work in nursing homes, medical facilities, or businesses that require social distancing at all times. Some have lost their jobs or were forced to retire early. Some have had to close their businesses. Some have lost their homes. Loved ones have passed away and we were unable to gather to grieve together. Plans were canceled: weddings, birthday parties, sports seasons, proms, graduations, family reunions.

Do you have friends who are floundering? Are they in over their heads?

There is something you can do!

When God drops that seed into your heart, obey it. Move on it. Take the family a meal, slip the young mother a twenty-dollar bill at the grocery store and whisper a word of encouragement, pray when God impresses someone on your heart. Strike up a conversation. Be surrendered to His will, listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It’s really nothing new. But this time God is calling you, “oh mighty man/woman of courage”.

You were created for such a time as this.

“Ever since the day of Adam’s fall, we’ve been required to surrender all. Yet so often before our morals wake, I accept the apple from the snake.” Daniel of Divinticus Vecordia.