"God Is Still God" - Amber Parker

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Amber Parker over these past few years. I remember meeting her yearsss back after one of our Encounter youth nights and taking her out to Chipotle to hang out with everyone. Little did I know that this girl would get connected in the church and allow the Lord to do an awesome work in and through her. This girl is not only an essential worker during this pandemic and works her butt off in all that she does but she’s an essential in the church. She KNOWS and LOVES the Lord, she has the best contagious laugh, she is SUPER smart from all the crazy amount of books she reads, can play a mean bass, has a compassionate heart like Jesus for those who have had it hard, she’s one of the most loyal people out there, and when she starts to preach about who God is— you do not want to stop her. Amber wrote this piece as she’s been reflecting during this covid crisis and I hope it blesses you just as it’s blessed me.

God Is Still God
Amber Parker

It’s okay to not know things. Has anyone told you that? Think about it- even if we did know the outcome of that test, that interview, that appointment, whatever- even if, who are we to think we suddenly become in control of it? Like a lot of other people, I like to know. I want to know everything about everything until there isn’t any more to know. I like to also trick myself into thinking that the more I know, the more control I have, and thus, the more secure I feel. Sound familiar? Good. It’s a lie. It’s a lie that is especially tempting to fall victim to in this season we’re all battling together, and I’m no exception. 

I’m allergic to every good thing God put on this planet, and I have pretty severe asthma. So I’m pretty susceptible to getting sick regularly, and one of the scariest things I think about now is how covid-19 would probably kill me. If I knew the exact likelihood that I would contract covid-19; if I knew one of my coworkers would become positive and end up passing it to me; I would know who to avoid, when to avoid them, the whole bit. I could also have watched the news or interviews with genius doctors to get all the facts about the virus, but what hope or security does that give me? The fact is that we could know everything about everything, but that gives us no more control than if we knew nothing. Regardless of the circumstance, God is still God. Everything is used for His glory and for our good, and there is such abundant beauty especially in not knowing the outcome of things. This season, I really don’t know a lot. I have no clues, no guesses, no assumptions. But that is where our faith comes in. 

The Bible tells us “put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation” (psalm 146:3). This does not mean to be ignorant to the world around you by any means, but it is clear in saying not to place our hope of salvation in man. Simply, there is no amount of knowledge, no promises, no actions of man that provides the peace, hope, and assurance that we get from the Lord. We can go ahead and test that theory, or we can put our hope and trust in the only one who truly deserves it. In times of crisis, we cling to what we do know, and that’s the key here. 

I’ve been reading through the Old Testament and one of my favorite stories is the story of Ahab going against the Syrians in 1 Kings. God promises a victory to Ahab saying, “I will give it into your hands this day”. Ahab then asks, “by whom?”. Historically, when God says to someone ‘I will give it into your hands’, there aren’t any questions being asked. That person is running STRAIGHT into battle. Ahab was the one God would use to destroy the nation, but that’s not the point I want to draw you to. The point is that there had never been hesitation to go into battle by the men God said He would give victory. Why? Why does Ahab doubt? Because the men who came before him knew their God. Ahab did not know his God. At this point, Israel had strayed so far from God that they really had no recollection of seeing the things He had done. Over and over again in the bible we see God say, “for you have forgotten...” (Deut. 32:18; Hosea 8:14, 13:6; Isaiah 17:10), and that remains pertinent today. Without knowing who our God is, without knowing what He has done, we have nothing. One amazing thing about God is that He’s really good at using catastrophes to draw our hearts near to Him. 

Let this season of not knowing allow you to better know our heavenly Father. Yes, it is scary right now, but His word tells us, “for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Nothing and no one can ever or will ever separate us from the love of God. No illness, no loss, no fear of the unknown. We don’t know what’s to come. But we have the privilege to know and love and serve a God who does, and has already overcome it all.