“Mike, are your jaws tired?”

That´s what my mother asked me as our family of five barreled down the road to my Granddaddy´s place.  I guess I talked a lot when I was a kid also. My most frequently used word was “Why?”

I still use that word a lot.  If someone tells me something and I do not already know why, I often ask.

So when the Coronavirus began its deadly spread in China, I asked, “Why?”

When it began to be a threat in the States, I again asked, “Why?”

Now, being a firm believer in the Sovereignty of God, I know that the crisis happening in our world and happening to us in our little part of the world is being permitted by our all wise and loving God, or it would not be happening at all.

Knowing that only rearranges the question.  “Why is God permitting the Coronavirus to spread and kill as it is doing?”
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Over the next number of days in this blog, I want us to explore that question biblically.
One reason I see why the Lord permits such adversity such as we and the rest of our world are experiencing right now comes out of Jesus´ Parable of the Sower.

Matthew 13:3–9 (NKJV)  Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” 
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The parable is all about how people receive the seed of the Word of God when it is sown in their lives.  Jesus identifies four kinds of receptivity, or lack thereof.

• The guy who is too busy or preoccupied to even listen to the Word
• The gal who is immediately receptive but in less than 24 hours forgets it and moves on
• The person who receives the Word, and the Word produces life but grows little because he or she is so busy with worries or making money
• Only in the fourth does the seed of the Word grow sufficiently to produce more seeds.​

The problem with the first three is lack of attention, preoccupation, business, preventing one from becoming all God intended.
Sometime, God allows adversity to get our attention – to cause us to pause and listen to Him, so that the seed of the Word of God can take root and grow us to maturity and spiritual productivity.

• If this is why God is allowing the Coronavirus to ravage wildly in our world, how long must it ravage for the world to start listening?
• How long for America to start listening?
• How long for me to listen?