Asymptomatic – I don’t know about you, but that’s a word I rarely heard of and didn’t use before this COVID19 pandemic. It basically means that you’ve got the virus, and you can share the virus, but you have no major symptoms and have no way of knowing that you’ve got the “bug.” Therefore, unless things change and you start feeling sick, or you get tested because someone else has found out that they have it, then, you’ll unknowingly and graciously “share” it with everyone with whom you come in contact. In fact, you can have it for weeks and never know it.
Thinking about this word made me think about all the people in the world who are in sin. Perhaps on the “outside,” they appear to be righteous. They are somewhat faithful in attendance to worship services. They are known to quote scripture or burst out in a hymn from time to time. They volunteer to pray for others on Facebook. Others respect them and “watch their language” around them. They appear to be without sin, but, Friends, “We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) For “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (I John 1:8).
There are many “secret sins” that plague us. David realized this in Psalm 19:12 when he exclaimed, “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret sins.” Sins that might be “asymptomatic” could include hate, envy, or pride. Some folks say, “What I do in the privacy of my own house is nobody else’s business.” And that is true – but, God is still there. God explained to Ezekiel that this is what Israel was doing. “Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’” (Ezekiel 8:12) But the Lord does see us. He sees us in public. He sees us in our homes. And most, importantly, as Paul reminds us in Acts 15:8, “And God, who knows the heart. . . .” He knows when we are asymptomatic with sin.
May we be look into our hearts, repent, and ask God to forgive us from our “secret sins,” for we are simply blessed, Courtney