Anne Graham: Virus's 'Blessing' is America Listens to God, A Spiritual Renewal

 By Michael W. Chapman | March 23, 2020 | 2:06pm EDT

 

 

Anne Graham Lotz (Getty Images)

In her spiritual message for March 23, Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of the late Pastor Billy Graham, said there may be a "blessing in the coronavirus" in that God is perhaps using the pandemic "to get our attention so that we will listen to His message," and that this will spark a "national spiritual renewal."

"It’s time to pray! It’s time to turn away from our sin, self-centeredness and secularism, and turn to God in faith and trust. Now," said Anne Graham Lotz. 

Anne Graham Lotz with her late father, Pastor Billy Graham. (Anne Graham Lotz)

"If we heed God’s message, He can calm the storm and bring us through to a time of spiritual revival and national renewal," she said. 

She also quoted from 2 Chronicles, Chapter 7, where the Lord says, "When I shut up the heavens so there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land, or send a plague among My people, if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered."

"Could the silver lining in the black cloud of the coronavirus be this?" asked Graham.  "That it causes America to look up and listen to what God has to say, and therefore becomes the trigger for a national spiritual revival? May it be so!"

Earlier in her commentary, Graham discussed how God came to Moses in a "dense cloud," when the Israelites were camped at the base of Mt. Sinai. (Exodus 19:9) 

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Considering the plague or dark cloud of the coronavirus, Graham wrote that the Lord said to Moses: 

I shall come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak… The Bible then goes on to describe the thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud…."

"The people were terrified!" she wrote. "But Moses encouraged them, 

Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin. The people looked, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud."

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"The amazing climax was that Moses then approached and entered the cloud where God was," Graham added. "And it was there, in the cloud, that God spoke to Moses."

God used the dense cloud and the lightning to get the people's attention, to coax them into listening to Him. Their leader, Moses, went into that frightful cloud and listened to what God was saying.

In this difficult and scary time with the pandemic, we also can turn to God and seek to hear what He is saying to us, explains Graham. 

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"Pray with me," she writes. "Lord God, as we sincerely place our faith in You, have mercy on us! Please! Hear our prayer. Forgive our sin. Heal our land."

"As we repent of our sin and return to You, return to us! There is no one like You to help the powerless against this mighty disease," says Graham.  "Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on You and in Your name we come against this vast, invisible enemy. Bring us through so that our faith in You is revived, and we experience a national spiritual renewal."

Anne Graham Lotz, 71, is the author of 12 books, and her most recent is Storming the Gates of Heaven: Prayer that Claims the Promises of God.  She was awarded six honorary degrees. She has three children. Her husband, Dr. Daniel Lotz, died in 2015.