Social Distancing.  Quarantine. Shelter in Place. 

Words indelibly etched in our minds….during a season we will never forget.  

Never in our lifetime have we experienced such an upheaval.   Not just in our nation, but in the entire world.  

Everything has changed.  And most likely, nothing will ever be the same.  

I hear pastors and preachers saying that while God did not cause this, He is definitely using this to get our attention.  He is speaking.

So I’ve been asking myself, what is God saying to me?

Slow down.  Spend more time with Him.  Make time for the things that matter.

I’ve spent so many years on the go.  It seems like I blinked and my first child went from a newborn to a teenager.  How did that happen? How did life pass by so quickly?  

How much have I missed because I was “too busy”?  I feel like I’ve always operated from a never-ending “to do” list.  When one thing is crossed off, 3 more are added. I seemed to be running on a never ending hamster wheel.

But not so much anymore.  My to do lists are shorter.  It mostly involves work, school, and cooking.  Spending time with my family. Spending time in God’s word.

This forced time of Sabbath has been hard for me.  It’s been like coming to a sudden stop on the highway, when just a few seconds earlier I was driving 80 miles an hour.

In Mark 2, when the Pharisees were questioning Jesus about the Sabbath, Jesus responded to them by saying “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  

We tend to think that keeping the Sabbath is a commandment that we follow to please God.  

Not at all.

The Sabbath was given as a gift to us from God.  To rest from our work. To spend time with our families.  And to honor the Lord.

And in keeping the Sabbath there were blessings that came out of it.  When we rest, we have better health, more time to cultivate relationships, and more time to hear what God is saying to us.  

When the quarantine is lifted and we return to our routines, I hope that we don’t go back to business as usual.  

I pray that we look back at this time as a turning point in our lives.  When as a world, we were brought to a standstill….and then we changed direction, and our lives and our world changed for the better.

~Vijoy