The Tension between What we Believe and What we actually Experience: amidst of this COVID-19 Pandemic
The tension at hand is this: "Do our faith, traditions, and creeds serve to interpret our experience of this pandemic? Or does our experience challenge, redefine, and refine our creeds, traditions, and songs of faith?"
The historic confession of the Church begins with the bold declaration, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.” This powerful declaration presupposes that God can control everything. Nothing in this world happens beyond the reach of His sovereign hands. This creed, first formulated in the 4th century and still recited in liturgy and catechesis today, affirms God’s sovereign control nothing happens outside His divine will. It continues, “And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord… suffered… crucified… died.” This reminds us that He suffered and died for no other reason but love.
Scripture, too, reveals an all-powerful God. The term “Almighty” appears over 300 times in the Bible. Passages such as Psalm 104:27–30 testify to God’s ongoing care for creation. And the Passion of Christ His suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection is the clearest, most dramatic display of divine love in history (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1–3; Romans 1:16).
Our hymns echo these convictions. Martin Luther penned, “A mighty fortress is our God… our helper He amid the flood.” Charles Wesley prayed in song, “Come, Thou Almighty King… o’er all victorious.” More recently, Leeland sang words that became a global anthem before the pandemic: “Way Maker, Miracle Worker, Promise Keeper, Light in the darkness, my God, that is who You are.”
But during the COVID-19 pandemic, this creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty” has felt heavy for many. For those who lost loved ones, jobs, homes, and health, faith has been shaken. Is the God we profess in our creeds and sing about in our songs the same God we experience in suffering?
If God is truly Almighty, why did He allow the virus to spread across nations? Why did He not immediately provide a vaccine? Why were even praying, faithful Christians not spared doctors, pastors, children?
These are valid and honest questions. Yet, in my own telephone counseling sessions with frontliners and grieving families, I did not hear them blame God. One friend, who lost his job and tested positive for COVID-19, told me quietly: “Pinapaalalahanan tayo ng Diyos.” (God is reminding us of something.) A doctor simply said, “Hindi tayo pababayaan ng Panginoon, kaya natin ’to.” (The Lord will not forsake us; we can endure this.) Their stories were raw with grief, but laced with deep trust. Their “How long, O Lord?” (cf. Psalm 6:3; 13:1–2; 89:46) was not faithlessness it was faith in the middle of lament.
Working on the Tension
Experience has the power to illuminate our faith and at times reform it if we allow it. The Bible itself is filled with stories of suffering that resemble the situation suffered by the people in many parts of the globe. In each painful chapter, God reveals Himself anew: Wilderness, Conquest, Monarchy, Divided Kingdom, Fall of Israel, and Judah, Exile, Restoration. Even the development of their doctrine of resurrection was occasioned by their failure to explain away the meaning of their suffering (theodicy).
During exile, Israel learned even more the virtue of humility and repentance. It was then that realities of God became more sensible, thus their view of God redefined and refined by the very condition of their suffering. Back to their land they returned with reformed understanding of God, of worship, of creation, etc. Suffering did not destroy their faith, it refined it.
God continues to reveal Himself through history. He is not fully grasped, not even by the most devout. As He told Moses, “You cannot see my face… you shall see my back” (Exodus 33:23) a powerful image of God’s mystery. He reveals Himself on His terms: in a manger, through a teenage mother, in a crucified man. The Holy One cannot be confined to our expectations, doctrines, or timelines.
So then, can we really say that God is absent or unconcerned in this pandemic? No. As Scripture reminds us, “Heaven is His throne and the earth His footstool” (Isaiah 66:1). He remains seated in heavenly places but is also intimately near. Through this global crisis, God made a way to allow his whole creation to heal.
Did we see God struggle when He created the world? Were we there to witness how chaotic the cosmos was, how comets clashed, galaxies spun, and darkness hovered over the deep? And yet, despite all the cosmic motion and disorder, every planet remains in its proper place. There is order even in the midst of chaos.
COVID-19, as devastating as it is, remains small compared to the vastness of God’s hand. So why do we sometimes doubt Him just because He seems silent?
We must not judge God by His silence. The truth is, sometimes in grief and pain, presence matters more than explanation. In times of crisis, the comforting presence of someone beside us can mean far more than a thousand words of advice. The same is true with God. He may be silent, but He is not absent. Just because He doesn’t always speak, doesn’t mean He’s not doing something. Sometimes, His silence is a form of deep companionship, a quiet solidarity with us in our suffering.
Remember the old saying: “The night is darkest before the dawn.” Keep praying, keep believing - God is not yet finish, he doesn't only make a way, for He declared that He, himself is the Way. Our creed is powerful in the face of suffering. It even becomes more real, more true when spoken through tears.
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