Predictably, most of the responses are nonsensical or funny, but when I did it, my auto fill came up with this: God is the one way I see you. I don't generally expect great theology to emerge from online randomness, but that seems a powerful sentence for this and any time because our actions during this global crisis are informed by how we see each other. And inevitably, if God is the lens through which I view you, my perspective changes.
Seeing you through God's eyes means loving you; it means seeing you as my neighbor . That might mean that I am praying for you, calling or emailing you, posting encouraging things on Facebook, buying only what I absolutely need, and above all, it may mean keeping away from you physically, hunkering down at home, and connecting in a way that poses fewer health risks. It doesn't mean irresponsibly shopping, mingling, socializing, or gathering. It means giving up my desire to carry on as usual in favor of trying to protect and care for you.
John Wesley cared deeply about seeing people as God sees them, and this concern led him to provide inexpensive health care and remedies for people who were unable to pay for medical help. His love for others was rooted in the love of Christ, who raised the fallen, cheered the faint, healed the sick, and led the blind, as Charles Wesley expressed it in his comforting hymn "Jesus, Lover of my Soul."
The challenges are many and great; the future shadowy and uncertain, but we have the opportunity to love each other in tangible, though non-physical ways that are literally life-saving. Let this time of unprecedented global disease be a time of unprecedented global love! Let your vision be transformed until you view your neighbor with God's loving eyes! Let God be the one way you see others, in a time of pandemic and always!
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