It’s curious how times of
testing impact individuals differently. Although I’m not thrilled to be working
at home for three weeks or more, I feel like I’ll be able to handle it okay.
(Of course, this is just the first day, so that may change before it’s over.)
Thinking back a couple decades or more, I recall that my habit whenever I was
home alone was to have the TV on in the background all the time for company. It
didn’t really matter to me what I was seeing or hearing, and I didn’t care how
that input was changing the way I thought about things. It took me a long time
to realize the negative impact it had on my spiritual life, and even longer to
be convicted enough to pray for change. If I’d been stuck at home for a few
weeks back then, I shudder to think what I would have done with my time. As God
has graciously enabled me to change and to mature as a Christian, my thoughts,
desires, and temptations are not what they once were. That’s not to say that I
never seek distractions from trials or make sinful choices, but I’m much more
likely to seek God instead.
In this time of stress
and anxiety, I’m sure that many people are tempted to “self-medicate” with the
old patterns of sin they once enjoyed. I keep returning to Ephesians 4:
“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must
no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds… They have
become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice
every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that
you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to
put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is
corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your
minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness” (17-24 ESV).
As this enforced isolation
has come during the season of Lent, it’s a good time for all of us to dive
deeper into Scripture and prayer and to truly seek God. My prayer for my fellow
church members is that this would be a time of purification rather than
returning to sin, that God would guard us from temptation, and that He would
help us find ways to uphold one another in prayer and with encouraging words. None
of us are strong enough to overcome sin by our own power. We can’t sanctify
ourselves. We need God’s help.
In the words of Rich
Mullins’ song “My One Thing”:
Save
me from those things that might distract me
Please take them away and purify my heart
I don’t want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on…
Please take them away and purify my heart
I don’t want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on…
May we each find
ourselves drawing closer to God during this time. And though we are physically
distant from one another, may we be reminded frequently that we are still one
body under one Lord.
“One
thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in His temple. For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of
trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will lift me high
upon a rock” (Psalm 27:4-5).
© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless
otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The
opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.
