Everyone has their own perspective on the pandemic and its impact. A lot of people try to use some sort of benchmark to compare it against – WWI, WWII, the Spanish Flu in 1918, SARS in 2002, it goes on and on. We hear the term, “tyranny of comparison.” For whatever reason we always want something to compare our current circumstances against. A friend of mine would say it’s all about scoreboards and while he was referring to our need to measure our success on a scoreboard, even in crisis we rely on scoreboards to see how we are doing versus our friends and colleagues. I am not discounting the need to look back at historical events so we can learn how to improve our reaction to similar current events – that is an essential arrow in our quiver. However, it appears to me that in a lot of us there is a need to use the process of comparison to purposely raise our level of panic. We dwell on the negative and refuse to seek positives. We allow our minds to become hyper-focused on the impact of the “crisis” which effectively blocks our ability to complete rational activities. We also allow our minds to project our panic as if we can foretell the future, imagining things are only going to get worse and there is no way out.
So what can we do to dismiss the panic and restore our rational thinking? In 2 Timothy 1:7 the Bible says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” I have to continuously remind myself of this because when I don’t, my mind begins to wander and I lose focus. During the financial crisis in 2008/2009 I had to be “talked off the ledge” on multiple occasions. It was a prime example of allowing what I know intrinsically to be overridden by fear. I am trying to not be preachy here. I am simply trying to expose my own weakness and how we have a true enemy that will use events like we are now experiencing to distract us from what we know has and will always be true – God is still in control and he isn’t using this to punish us or separate himself from us.
Terrie and I have been looking for silver linings resulting from the dramatic changes we are seeing during the pandemic and there are many. I see parents and children spending time together, out riding bikes, taking walks together, playing outside together, eating meals together. Terrie believes God is using the pandemic as an opportunity to show us we need to calm down – to rethink our busy life styles, to refocus on the rich life He intended for us to live. I am hopeful some of the societal changes we are seeing will be long lived. Parents might actually realize they can experience a lot of joy through spending more time with their children. The lost traditional family structure that has been so important to the moral fiber of our country will rebound creating positive, healing ripples across a wide spectrum of our population. Maybe we will come to realize our obsession with watching sports for entertainment has diverted our attention from the real life riches God intended for us. Maybe we will figure out that our obsession with performers, entertainers and politicians is misplaced hero worship – the real heroes are our spouses, our children, our next door neighbors, our pastors, first responders and most importantly, Jesus.
It has taken most of my 66 years to get to a place where I understand how my tendency to follow the crowd into panic during times of uncertainty hurt my wife, my sons, my employees and my friends. In Deuteronomy 33:12 Moses declares, “The beloved of the Lord dwells in safety. The High God surrounds him all day long and dwells between his shoulders.” My prayer for you is that you will dwell in that safety, that during this pandemic you will be the leader God created you to be, and that we will all come out of this better men, husbands, fathers, bosses and friends.
Doug's Journey 