Posted October 07, 2026
The Trump Administration sent a formal diplomatic message to Russia seeking more information about a reported death linked to a lab facility in Siberia. The World Health Organization (WHO) is also “actively following up” on the mysterious death and has sought details from Russian officials on reports of a second pneumonia case linked to the lab.
Some fear the researcher could have died from pneumonic plague. Early reports said the lab worker dropped a test tube containing live bacteria, but Russia’s health institute said it had not found evidence of any such accident.
Pneumonic plague infects the lungs, prompting the patient to cough out infectious airborne droplets. The WHO said “the public health risk to the general population appears to be low,” but new risk assessments will be conducted when further information is known.
If any of this sounds to you like the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re not alone. The difference is that while pneumonic plague is typically fatal if untreated, it can be treated with existing antibiotics if identified quickly.
However, both stories remind us that, in a world more closely connected through travel, economics, and media than ever before, what happens to one of us can affect all of us. A case in point is the somber anniversary making headlines today.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas staged its horrific invasion of Israel, murdering more than a thousand people and taking around 250 people captive. The sickening crimes it perpetuated against women and children were especially perverse and shocking.
I have traveled through the area where the invasion took place. Our study tours did not stop there, since there was little to see of historical significance. But the tragedy perpetrated there three years ago continues to resonate around the globe.
Some examples:
This ongoing conflict has a theological explanation. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wrote:
The possibility of pain is inherent in the very existence of a world where souls can meet. When souls become wicked, they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another; and this, perhaps, accounts for four-fifths of the sufferings of men. It is men, not God, who have produced racks, whips, prisons, slavery, guns, bayonets, and bombs; it is by human avarice or human stupidity, not by the churlishness of nature, that we have poverty and overwork.
Lewis then described the solution to our plight: “The proper good of a creature is to surrender itself to its Creator—to enact intellectually, volitionally, and emotionally, that relationship which is given in the mere fact of its being a creature.” However, he noted, “In the world as we now know it, the problem is how to recover this self-surrender. We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved: we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms.”
At this point, I could exhort us to try harder to do better, to recommit ourselves to the daily surrender to God that is commanded by his word (cf. Romans 12:1–2). But Lewis is right: “To surrender a self-will inflamed and swollen with years of usurpation is a kind of death.” Jesus was similarly realistic when he stated that anyone who wants to be his disciple must “deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
The good news is that God always gives us what we need to do what he asks.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus modeled the laying down of “arms” when he grieved over the cross, where he knew the accumulated sins of the entire human race would be laid on his sinless soul, but nonetheless resolved, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).
Now the living Lord Jesus stands ready to help us do what he did.
If your next step into submission were easy, you would already have taken it. The same is true for me. I have not found reasoning to be sufficient here. I can tell myself that because Satan hates me, anything he tempts me to do will cost more than it pays. I can remind myself that “private” sins never stay that way and that surrendering to God always leads to his best for me.
However, the heart and the head are not always connected, and “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). So, our best response is to pray with David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10), and then to position ourselves for him to answer our prayer.
According to cultural researcher Ryan Burge, 83 percent of evangelicals say the Bible is “very/extremely important,” but only 51 percent say they read it outside of religious services at least once a week. In another survey, less than 40 percent of Christians (and only 10 percent of young adults) said they pray daily. Only 30 percent of Christians say they attend worship services weekly.
Jesus said we would experience his transforming power to the degree that we are connected to him (John 15:5). Is this good news or bad news for your soul today?
The third anniversary of October 7 reminds us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) and to stand with those who stand against enemies who would do to Americans what they did to Israelis if given the chance. It is a good day to remind ourselves that while the crimes of the few can affect the many, the light of Christ always defeats the darkness of sin (John 1:5).
And it is a good day to ask Jesus to manifest the light of his sinless character in and through our lives. By his power, we can choose what we want most over what we want now.
Which will you choose today?
“The bucket that is sunk into the depths of the ocean is full of the ocean. The ocean is in the bucket, but also the bucket is in the ocean, surrounded by it.” —A. W. Tozer
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