Lessons Learned From 2+ Years in a Covid-19 World

I cannot bank on insurance, or speculations, or on any kind of calculation; 

• I can bank on only one thing, 
• that my interim of life may at any second be cut short; 
• therefore my only confidence is to remain true to God.

The great care of the life, 

• Jesus says, 
• is to make the relationship to God the one care. 
• Most of us are careful about everything saving that.

I have been put into a program 

• that I have no say in, 
• and I bungle my part by trying to be my own organizer.

These things—food, physical health, money, possessions, and the earth, 

• must always have their place in the life of any man of God, 
• and they either make men and women devils 
• or make them what they should be. 

The man of God uses these things to express his relationship to God; 

• whereas the man who does not know God 
• tries to find his lasting good in the things themselves. 
• The practical test of a man’s life in Time 
• is how he lives in connection with these things.

The devastations of the covid crisis and the cultural and economic upheaval are appalling, 

• but there are compensations, 
• and one compensation will be that we shall be driven back to the elemental. 

Some problems will not be revived again, 

• they are finished; 
• but every man will have a totally new attitude to these things 
• and a new reverence for them. 
• They will have a hold now 
• which the refinement of civilization had made us lose.

Seize life! 

• Eat bread with gusto,
• Drink wine with a robust heart.
• Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!

Dress festively every morning.

• Don’t skimp on colors and scarves.
• Relish life with the spouse you love
• Each and every day of your precarious life.

Each day is God’s gift. 

• It’s all you get in exchange
• For the hard work of staying alive.
• Make the most of each one!
• Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!

This is your last and only chance at it,

• For there’s neither work to do nor thoughts to think
• In the company of the dead, where you’re most certainly headed.
• Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 The Message Eugene H. Peterson

Adapted Excerpt From

Shade of His Hand

Oswald Chambers