PART 2
Same disclaimer: I don’t claim that any of the thoughts below are well thought out, complete or exhaustive. What follows is just me putting some words to some thoughts that my brain has seemed to want to hold onto more than other thoughts, so the point of these words is remembering, not necessarily analyzing. Does that make sense? In other words, if you don’t like something or disagree with something or think I wasn’t fair or thorough enough with something that you think needs more explanation that’s fine…maybe you should think more about it and write your own post, I’ll read it, I promise. So here we go:
2. Some Things Needed to Change Anyway
There have surely been many reasons for mourning and frustration in this Covid-19 era. Thousands of people have died. Thousands of people have lost jobs. Hundreds of small businesses will close down. Hundreds of church plants will close down. Etc. It has certainly been an extremely painful season for our country and our world. And this crisis has brought with it tons of adapting, adjusting and change. Most of these changes were forced upon us and really have altered the way that we live our daily lives. Some of the changes have been very difficult and for good reasons, things like working from home or homeschooling our kids were less than ideal circumstances and for many a very real strain and hardship. And while most of it was hard, we should probably be honest enough to admit, not all of it was bad. Some changes, I think, have been really good things and probably needed to change anyway. Below are just some, I’m sure you can think of others, but again the preemptive preface: I am not saying that the things below make the coronavirus some sort of “blessing in disguise,” or that it was “worth going through it because of these things.” Naw. Even typing those words made me uncomfortable, all I am saying is that it made us change some things that needed to be changed and that is a good thing. Here are my observations:
A. Our Family
Some people have hung out with their immediate family more consistently in the last 2 months than they have in the last two years. There was nowhere to run. There are no excuses, no obligations, no hobbies, no friends to go see, no errands to take care of, basically there has been no escape from spending time with those other people that live in our houses. I am sure that for many this has brought a lot of tension, perhaps a blow up or two and more than a little passive aggression and under-the-breath comments. And I don’t want to overlook or avoid that this has brought a dark escalation in domestic violence and horrible, painful realities for some. I know that. And I hate it. It has driven me again to regularly pray, “Come quickly Lord Jesus!” But also, in this time dads have played a lot of Legos, moms have dug down deep for some creative crafts or games to play, more family movie nights have been spent laughing together, and most of us have had to get a lot better at dinner table discussions. I pray that many parents have taken this opportunity to grow in the discipling of their kids and we are all feeling a need to be much more intentional about showing our children Jesus, not just in teaching but in modeling it and living it out in front of them. And if it really took a pandemic to open our eyes to the fact that it ought to be this way, that our time should be spent with our families more than anyone else, than that should wake us up to how far we had drifted from a healthy home life. This is something that needed to change and I hope stays changed!
B. Our Idols
No new movies to go see or movie stars to admire. No sports on TV or multi-million-dollar athletes to esteem. No superstars that we pretend deserve our hours of focus and attention, those other human beings that we have to convince ourselves we aren’t worshiping, just…appreciating a lot. Now, I know that’s not even remotely the case, we still follow them on social media and hang on their every word and believe because they make millions of dollars to star in movies or make baskets they have credible opinions about things that are going on in the world. Also, I am not an anti-movie or anti-sports guy at all. That’s not my soapbox or the chip on my shoulder (that’s coming, see below haha). But I do hope that this time of quarantine has maybe put how much we actually need these celebrities into perspective. Like, “we definitely do like you guys, but we realized we don’t really need you that much.” And wouldn’t it be so awesome if the powers that be decided, “Ok we are going to open up Hollywood and sports again, but we are going to cap their pay at like $50k a year because we realized teachers, nurses, truckdrivers, and farmers are the people we actually need, so we are going to pay them the money and give them the endorsements we used to give to celebrities.” (Can you imagine your kid’s teacher sponsored by Reebok or Adidas?) I know, I know none of that will ever happen, but this is the stuff I’m thinking about in the pandemic. I hope we can at least remember that all sports shut down for months and it wasn’t really that big of a deal, so maybe we need it less than we think.
C. Our Church
We have had the opportunity to have all excuses to miss church on Sunday completely stripped away. In the midst of the pandemic “gathering” with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day has simply never been easier or simpler. Not feeling well? Stay in bed pull it up on your phone. Hard week, kinda tired? Literally roll out of bed, wearing whatever you wore to bed and drag yourself to the tv or laptop 2 seconds before it starts. No kids’ sports. No car problems. Literally no other obligations whatsoever. Or let’s say you do have obligations in the morning, BOOM! That morning service is captured forever in the eternal cyberspaces of YouTube (or whatever platform your particular church uses). And I think we should carry that habit over with us as things creep their way back to normalcy, excuseless Sundays. Sundays where gathering with the Lord’s people came first as a priority and everything else came second. I like that, and more importantly God has called for that the whole time (Heb. 10:24-25).
But also, if you have found yourself still managing to find excuses to miss church during these days and you’re still unmotivated by the Lord’s call to gather with His people for worship, then I think it’s probably time for you start examining your heart (2 Cor. 13:5). When all the usual excuses have been taken away and you are called to shelter-in-place, but you still find consistency in church attendance fleeting, it is likely time that you start asking, “Why?” Some people have said it is hard to pay attention to church on a screen for that long, but those same people can likely manage to sit through a whole movie or binge watch whatever series happens to be super popular on Netflix that week. Again, the issue is not with the 90-minute church service on the screen, just like it was never your kids’ sports activities or how long your week was etc. The issue was always with the value you place on gathering with the Lord’s people for worship. And I think the pandemic has provided many people the space to ask the hard question, “I don’t have any excuses to miss church, but still don’t want to go, I wonder what that says about my relationship with God?” I hope not being able to sit in church has brought to our attention some stuff that has probably needed to change for a long time. I am praying for it actually.