Are you tired of hearing about COVID?

Annoyed by the mask mandates?

Have you had your nose scraped enough?

We are all in this together so hang in there!

I bring up COVID because last Saturday night, I took my son to get tested.

We went to the drive-thru and received a test kit. My son swabbed his own nose, put everything in the right bag and placed it in the collection container. It took less than 10 minutes.

And then we waited.

And waited some more.

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Let me back up a little. Here is the timeline leading up to the test on Saturday night.

Thursday: son said throat was a little soar

Friday: son awoke feeling sore throat, cough, and fatigued; stayed home from school

Friday night: son still symptomatic and now, can’t really taste

Saturday morning: son couldn’t taste or smell banana

Saturday night: took son to get tested

Now you are up to date.

More waiting.

The worst part about waiting is that we excluded ourselves from a few social events.

My wife and daughter missed a wedding shower.

We all stayed home from church.

My daughter could not go to soccer practice.

We were in limbo while we waited for the test results. Everything hinged on that result.

It came back Monday afternoon. And it was negative.

That’s one test I am glad my son failed!

But it did me an idea.

There is a test that all humans have taken or will take at some point.

It is the sin test.

We are born with sin. It is our nature. So, when it comes time to take the sin test, we will test positive for sin.

Just like the COVID test, the results will be positive if we have the virus.

There is a silver lining. We don’t need to wait for the results.

We can take a sin test right now instead of waiting until we die.

Jesus is the vaccine. He eradicates sin. Blows it away! Sin has no chance.

Ephesians says we accept Jesus by faith, not by works. This is how the vaccine is administered.

There is no copay. No lines. You don’t need insurance. And no waiting for results.

So really, a negative (for sin) can be a positive (righteous in Christ).

Over the next two or three weeks, I will explore this idea of ‘testing negative for sin”.

Ideas like righteousness, salvation, grace, and hope.

Hope you don’t mind a little waiting. (Insert winking emoji here)