One of the features of the COVID-19 emergency is that we are around fewer people, and often, the people we are around aren’t at their best. And if we look at ourselves honestly, we often aren’t at our best either. Over the long term, I think we can become more sanctified, more gracious, and more resilient. But this doesn’t mean that we can expect these traits to present themselves in other people each day.
Many people have expressed this, but we are in a time of upheaval unlike anything most of us have ever experienced. Long standing routines have had to be abandoned. We’re experiencing isolation from most of the people we know. However, if you are married, have a family, or even a roommate, you interact with such people constantly. These interactions may bring out latent tensions in such relationships.
On top of this isolation, we experience uncertainty about the spread of this pandemic, our job, and the ability to maintain our present standard of living. Even if we are getting together with our church family using technology, it still lacks the immediacy of face-to-face interactions.
With all of these conditions coming together, tempers will flare. Frustrations will erupt. We will become peevish and irritated with one another. Our tendency to grumble and complain will emerge.
So, we will often not be at our best.
This is an opportunity for us to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, to exercise great love, patience, and forbearance with each other. This is the time to practice the habit of not letting the sun go down on your anger.
While our current conditions are new to us, the chaos that experience now was the normal condition of the lives of most of our forefathers in the faith. This is what the “great cloud of witnesses” of Hebrews experienced day by day. They lived faithfully and fruitfully in their day, and because of this, God commends them to us.
May we seek God’s face, that we would glorify him, and bring forth the fruit of the Spirit and exercise great patience and forbearance with one another, knowing that often we will not be at our best, and that those whom we interact with will not be at their best.
Half Baked 