Do we open our churches or do we close our churches? Do we obey God, not man, or do we obey the governing authorities? Well, the Bible tells us to do both. What’s the best answer and what’s the best witness in these tough times? I’m Joel Fieri and this is What You’ve Been Searching For. Stay tuned, let’s talk about it.

In response to last week’s podcast, where I told my COVID-19 story about how I contracted the virus on a trip, I was sick for a couple of weeks but not really that sick and now I’m fine. I came through it just fine, and I questioned our need to live in fear of this virus. In the feedback I got from last week’s podcast, a few people stressed to me the severity of the effects of the virus, how many people have died, how many people have lost loved ones, how many people have been very sick and how overwhelmed our medical facilities and medical people are during this pandemic. I see that, and I believe that, but for every argument that can be made for the effects of the virus on people’s lives and the overwhelming nature of it, an equally strong argument can be made by the overwhelming effects of the lockdown on people, the lives lost, the lives affected, and the psychological, mental, spiritual and physical toll that this lockdown is taking.

This massive government overreach has affected the lives of many people that feel like they haven’t been heard. They feel like their stories aren’t told. They feel like their efforts to keep their lives together are somehow less significant than anybody else’s, and maybe even seen in a negative light, as seen somehow perpetuating the bad effects of the virus. They feel alone and they don’t feel acknowledged. That got me to thinking, and my thinking was triggered mostly by something that happened last week. Here, locally around our studio where we’re taping, there’s a lot of restaurants that are struggling to stay open. They are open now in peaceful protest of the county’s orders to stay closed or at least to be takeout only, but they’ve done the math, they can’t survive if they do that. So they’re opening their doors to have people sit and eat.

I’ve been doing my best to support them in this. Last week, I went to a local restaurant here. I was served by a young lady who was a little bit harried. She was overworked, staff was short, they were fairly busy. She gave me my food. After I ate my food, she came to give me my bill. She said, “Thank you for coming,” and I said, “No, thank you for being open. I’m going to do all I can to support you and all the other restaurants in that area that were trying to stay open.” Well, this previously unexpressive, stressed out young woman stepped back, brightened up with a big smile and said, “Well, thank you, hon. You can come back anytime,” I said, “I sure will.”

Other than that thinking it was great that a young woman called no guy like me hon, it really told me and opened my eyes to a possible witness field and harvest field that Christians haven’t been considering. When the Bible talks about Christian witness, there’s a couple of analogies that I think of, a couple of parables or analogies that it uses. One is good soil versus rocky soil or hard soil. Good soil that’s receptive to the gospel, rocky soil that rejects the gospel. The other is the harvest field. Jesus said, “Look at the fields. They’re ripe for harvest. Go into the world and sow the gospel.” That got me thinking, what is the good soil around us? What is the right harvest for us?

I’m not really sure how the people who disapprove of churches being open and disapprove of Christians standing up for their religious liberties, or even obeying God and not man, the people who will come against us on that,