Being Sunday, I woke up early in the morning rather out of habit than piety and not wanting to get up as I was not supposed to go to church for worship because of the prevalence of strict lockdown norms arising out of Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. So, I lay in my bed pondering over the bygone Sundays (the pre-Covid era), when every believer used to be always hectic from early morning for preparing to go to church for worship. As far as believers are concerned, attending churches as part of worship is ritualistically mandatory on Sundays. But the Covid-19 attack on mankind made things change, and it affected the worship pattern too. The rising number of infected Covid patients and resultant lockdown forced all kinds of denominational churches to close indefinitely. So, the faithful too, remained indoors while the churches remained closed.

 I still lay in bed thinking and sometimes arguing myself, “Why is this pestering pestilence upon this earth?” The Bible says in Lamentations 3:37-40 that nothing happens without God’s permission. So, naturally, it must be inferred that the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on us not without the knowledge of God, and surely God had permitted it so that everyone should return to Him. Alas and alack, people still wallow in their sinful activities unmindful of the slap having received. Tossing and turning in bed, I asked myself, “Why did God permit to shut the centers of worship?” Now I laboriously racked my brains to find an answer, and intuitively, a plausible explanation barged into my mind. God has given us complete freedom to live as per our likes or dislikes, and God is not a peeping Tom who wants to poke His nose into our affairs. So, perhaps, the shutdown of places of worship may not be a thing of concern to God though He has known it beforehand. Afterward, I became more sober-minded and sagacious, and suddenly wisdom began to dawn on me.

What God requires out of us is our complete and implicit dedication. Further, God looks at the heart, but people look at the outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7). This is the major difference between our thoughts and God’s thought. You can hide anything from anybody as long as you can, but you cannot hide anything from God. Now I looked at the wall clock – 06.00 am. Then, getting off my bed, I went down on my knees on the floor thanking my Lord, and I remained praying for half an hour. By now, my wife and children got up and were ready to watch our church’s online worship service. Honestly, God put in me as much joy of going to church as I partook in the online services sitting at home. After all, God dwells in us as we read in 2 Corinthians 13:5 and Romans 8:10. He never dwells in the non-humans, as claimed in certain other religious scriptures. So, it does little matter to God whether we worship at home or at church. God expects nothing from us except only our dedication to Him.