It’s Better to Have Loved & Lost…

Published on by wanderingpastor

I didn’t expect the grief of lost friendships. I suppose I should have because it just makes sense. But I didn’t. My mind was steeled for the family difficulties that we would surely face after uprooting and moving a couple of hundred miles away, and the thousand moving parts that come with two major church transitions. I lamented and prayed for the hurt that other people felt at our leaving, and I worked to make room in my heart for all the new people I was meeting and befriending. I didn’t expect to personally struggle.

But I have.

It has been eight months now, and I still feel the emptiness and sadness of relationships that I cherished that now are in the wind (or seem that way, at least). Did I assume that those friendships would always be? That the move wouldn’t affect them? That in our day of connectedness and social media, maintaining friendships is less of a concern?

I’m not sure what was going through my mind. But now I know that this is a significant part of a pastoral transition - or possibly any transition. We will grieve lost relationships, and maybe learn a bit about life (and God) as we do.

Here are the five big lessons that I am learning as I continue to process this, posted with the hopes of being helpful to someone going through something similar. Or maybe posted just because writing helps me process; I dunno.

Don’t Give Up on Friendships or on Friendship

It is tempting to just give up and move on. When you feel like people are done with you, it is tempting to be done with them. But we should resist that temptation. Life is too short, and friendship is too precious to just give up. With patience and prayer, continue to extend love and make only the best assumptions about your friends. A season of distance isn’t necessarily the end of a friendship. So, don’t give up on friendships.

And, even more importantly, don’t give up on friendship! I already struggle so much with friendship, and “losing” so many at once makes it tempting to just give up and determine to keep people at arm’s length from here on. Why go to the work of making new friends, if one day you might be at this point again with these new friends?

Because it is truly, as the sappy cliche goes, better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all! To have friends that you may one day lose is far better than not having friends. Friendship is a sweet blessing from the Lord. So don’t let the hurt you feel keep you from pressing into new friendships.

Trust the Lord with Your Heartache

Second, trust the Lord with your hurts. Lament what you have lost. Pray for his comfort, and trust him with all of this. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything (including friendships!) by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known to God… Turn to him. Don’t just stay in your head over this, take it to your heavenly Father. He is good! He cares! And you can trust him, even with the heartache you feel over lost relationships.

Remember that Friendships are Momentary

Third, remember that we live in an Ecclesiastes world. And seasons definitely change. We want what we love now to be forever, but the reality is that it is all so very temporary. As a pastor, I have wept with older saints grieving the loss of life-long friends who have died. They feel it! Friendship is momentary. A precious blessing now, that we should embrace and savor, but one that, like everything else in this world, is fleeting.

Earthly friendships are momentary. Remember that. And let that stoke in your heart a longing for what is eternal. For what will never fade with time.

Remember that God is Sovereign

Fourth, remember that God is sovereign over everything you are facing. This has been a balm to my soul. God is sovereign over my departure from one church and starting at another, and all of those strained relationships that went with it. This is all part of God’s good purposes for me and for them. He doesn’t make mistakes, and he is good. So let that truth carry the day in your heart, even as you lament what you feel are losses.

Remember Your Dearest, Most Enduring Friendship

Finally, remember the one friend that you have that will never leave you! In John 15:15 Jesus tells his disciples that now he calls them his friends. And the sense of that friendship is that he is dedicated to bringing us eternal joy. This is a friendship that endures! Nothing diminishes or destroys this friendship. It is forever secured for us by the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus is our friend.

Every healthy-but-frail friendship is a small taste of that enduring, everlasting friendship. Let those friendships point your heart to that one. Jesus calls us friends!

Still Learning about Pastoral Friendships, One Chapter at a Time

My wife thinks that I should write a book on pastoral friendship. I am sure she thinks this, not because I have such a great handle on friendship, but because this has been a rather difficult theme for me (for proof, only a year ago I wrote this post on Friendship Conundrums). I’m still learning and growing and wanting the Lord to teach me through this. I am doing this learning one chapter of life at a time.

When (if?) I get my mind around friendship better, I might follow my wife’s advice and pick up my pen. Until then, I will just work to keep my eyes on my Friend, and on my friends too!

10 Tips for Writing Better Sermons

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  1. Have a clear and concisely-stated main idea for the sermon.
    1. Note: this requires a clearly stated and concise main idea of a passage, which…
    2. Requires lots and lots of exegetical groundwork
  2. Make sure that all of your points point to the main idea of the sermon.
  3. Don’t illustrate what doesn’t need an illustration.
  4. Illustrate with various kinds of illustrations:
    • Short stories (use rarely)
    • 2-3 sentence word pictures (use sometimes)
    • One-sentence pictures (use often)
    • Illustrations from Greek and Hebrew (use almost never)
  5. Do more showing than you do telling.
  6. Write a manuscript as long as you want and include everything you think needs to be there and then…
  7. Trim your manuscript to 3500 words (for a 35-minute sermon).
    • Be brutal and legalistic on this point
    • Cut out the fluff:
      1. Everything that is not necessary to make the point
      2. Everything that you included only because it has awesome homiletical force 
      3. Everything that you have to work to make work
  8. Pick 5-6 different people, from different walks of life (young, old, educated, uneducated, mature and immature Christians, etc.), who will hear your sermon and consider how it should impact them.
  9. Write (and preach) every sermon as if it is the last sermon you will ever preach.
  10. Pray a lot. And then pray some more.

Our Friendship Conundrum

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As a young minister many years ago, I remember hearing an old pastor say that ministers have few friends. Then he said that he himself had no friends, save for his wife. It was the cost, he said, of serving Jesus.

My reaction at the time was a little mixed. I felt sad for that pastor for the feelings of loneliness that must have prompted that comment. I was saddened, also, for those in the congregation who considered him a friend - as I knew there were many.

His comment also made me wonder if I could be happy serving Christ with no friends in this world.

That same pastor showed himself to be increasingly cynical about relationships, and so I likely didn’t take his comment to heart as much as I should have.

Here I am many years later, finding myself relating to him more than ever. I do feel a dearth of friendship on the one hand and a longing for deep friendships on the other. I want to push back against cynicism too, having seen the damage that caused in his heart and ministry. And, of course… I don’t want to sadden those who consider me a friend.

Few value friendship, because few experience it.

C.S. Lewis

I preached a sermon last summer on what the Proverbs teach about friendship. While preparing, I ran across what C.S. Lewis wrote about friendships, and one remark stood out in particular. Lewis said that few value friendship because few experience it. Is Lewis right? Do very few of us experience friendship?

My own experience tells me that men struggle with friendships far more than women do. I’m sure there are exceptions, but through the years, that has been my observation. So men struggle with friendships more than women. And, sadly, most pastors struggle more than most other men.

So, here I am, a man and a pastor and I am often lonely and longing for real, Christ-centered friendships. What am I to do? What are you to do, pastor/Christian/friend, if this is how you are feeling? Here are four suggestions.

1. Resist making friendship your idol. Friendship is a kindness from the Lord. It is a good gift for which we should give thanks. God gives good things to his people! Friendship is one of those good things.

Yet, while friendship is a wonderful gift it makes a terrible god. The god of friendship will never satisfy the longing you feel or calm the restlessness of your heart. Only God can do that.

Making friendship an idol is a great way to push your friends away and strain your relationships, as you get clingy or jealous or demanding, or allow drama to creep into the relationship in other ways.

The answer is to press hard after Jesus Christ first, not friendship. You cannot allow your desire for friendships - or your loneliness - to grow into an idol in your heart, robbing your joy and leaving you empty.

Jesus never leaves us empty. Keep that in mind.

2. Nurture the friendships that you do have. While I was writing this post, I ran upstairs from my basement to make a quick cup of tea. While en route, my 15-year-old playfully tried to box my ear, my wife hugged me, and my 9-year-old asked if I would sit with her while my tea steeped. I also spent a minute figuring out my plans to drive to a neighboring town tonight with a young man for an archery competition.

It is easy to not put those kinds of relationships within our “friendship category” (my son, my wife, my daughter and a guy about 30 years younger than me), but that is exactly what they are - friends! My wife is my best friend on the planet, and I have never enjoyed a deeper relationship with anyone than the one I enjoy with her.

My son is growing up and we almost look eye to eye (if I am being honest, he’s a bit taller). We will be friends, I hope, for a long time. That little girl of mine who likes to sit close is my little buddy, which is another word for friend. And friendships don’t have to be squarely within our age demographic (I know this from the other end. One of my closest friends in life passed away two years ago from Covid19, and he was about 30 years older than me).

All that to say that we often lament not having deep and meaningful friendships, while at the same time not considering the friends we have and nurturing those into deep and meaningful friendships.

That longing for deep friendship should prod us to nurture every friendship we have. Those feelings should not cause us to merely long for friendships we don’t have.

3. Seek after new friendships, and decide that you will “fail falling forward”. There is a tendency in me to withdraw the moment I don’t feel the warmth of friendship from someone, or suspect that a person does not like something about me (or just me in general). My very counter-productive tendency is to retreat and give up on the friendship. It would be better for me to press in all the same. Who knows what the Lord may do?

Many times, it is just the surface awkwardness that we have to overcome, not deep issues making real friendships impossible.

So work at this! Friendships are hard work. Work at them!

4. Don’t buy the world’s lie that men can’t have deep friendships (or that pastors do not have friends). It is not true. There are plenty of biblical examples of real men nurturing deep, lasting friendships with other men while loving God supremely, and keeping everything healthy.

Men, think hard about friendship, and press into real, God-glorifying, brother-edifying friendships with those God has placed in your life. Don’t take one single friend for granted. Friendship is too precious, and too good a gift.

And remember, there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24b).

When No One Says “Thank You”

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On most weekends I have the privilege of preaching during gathered worship. That has been the case for the past many years. I have preached to the same church week in and week out through easy seasons and more difficult ones. Over the years, I have preached passage-by-passage through Romans, 1 Corinthians, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Colossians; along with survey series on Genesis, Exodus, Job, Jeremiah, Ruth, and many Psalms. I have spent well over 6500 hours laboring over the Bible and books preparing for the sermons I have preached. I have about 3000 pages of sermon manuscripts to show for it.

And I have prepared and delivered most of those sermons (90%+?) without a single person saying “thank you” or offering any appreciation at all. In fact, on balance over the years, I think I have received more criticism than gratitude.

So what is a preacher like me to do on a Monday after preaching his heart out yet again and hearing crickets in response? That is what I am trying to work through with this post. Here are 5 things that might help you keep your head in the game.

  1. Thank God for the crickets. If you’re like me it would be easy to let the praise of man go to your head. If people were to swoon over my preaching, I have a feeling I would start feeling like a rock star and forget that anything good in me and from my labor is ultimately and entirely from God. God has ways of keeping us humble. The silence might be a means of grace in our lives. So take a minute on Monday to thank God for the crickets.
  2. Focus on pleasing God, not man. Remember that you did not sign up for this work because you love the praise of man, or because you desire to please people, but to please the Lord. So on this Monday reflect on that. Did you faithfully exposit God’s Word? Did you invest the appropriate amount of time and energy into the work? Did you exalt Christ and make the gospel plain and seek to love God’s people through preaching? Then take joy in the pleasure of God. It is far better than the fleeting and fickle praise of man.
  3. Don’t assume people are not thankful. Some people don’t say “thank you” very often, and yet they may be thankful. Many people have likely heard you preach and thanked God for his Word and the way it was proclaimed and how the Lord used his Word and your sermons in their lives. Don’t fault people for not saying it. Maybe expressing gratitude to you just didn’t cross their minds.
  4. Make it your habit to thank the preachers you hear. When I hear a sermon, I make it a point to let the preacher know that I am thankful that he has worked so diligently to serve me and others and Christ by preaching the Word. The more expositional, the more grateful I am. I especially make it my habit to thank up-and-coming preachers. While being careful not to puff them up or overcompliment, I make sure that they know that I am grateful for their work. I mention specific aspects of the sermon that were especially helpful to me.
  5. Bury your thoughts about yesterday and put your nose right back into The Book for next Sunday. Another week means another sermon and, since it is Monday, it is time to dig in. Sunday is coming. Get to work.

There is only one “well done” you really want to hear. In all the strength that God provides, aim for that on Monday. Keep preaching the Word for the glory of God and the good of his people!

Oh, and if you are a preacher who faithfully preaches the Word each week: thank you.

3 Reasons to Pray for Ukraine

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You probably have heard by now that the President of the Russian Federation has declared war on its smaller and peaceful neighbor, Ukraine. What has been building for months - cloaked in sinister euphemisms and deceit - has given way to open war as Russian missiles and artillery bombard cities, and invading troops pour across the border.

As I write this, Ukraine is feeling the full brunt of the Russian armed forces. With this post, I’d like to call on American Christians to pray.

Here are three reasons.

First, this war will surely bring about massive destruction and human suffering for the people of Ukraine. In a war like this, it is not only soldiers who will die. Cities will be destroyed and villages will be wiped from the earth and law and order in this normally peaceful country will be massively disrupted. Refugees and displaced persons will flee across the borders of the countries that neighbor to the West, and we are seeing this even now. Homelessness will abound, and many will likely freeze. As I preached in a sermon a few weeks ago, Christians care about this kind of suffering, so we should pray for Ukraine.

Second, pray because the world is much smaller than it sometimes feels. Ukraine is a long way away from Nebraska and many of us have never been there. Some would have difficulty finding it on a map. But history teaches us that wars like this in Europe seldom stay a long way away. Pray to the Lord, the one who is Sovereign over nations, that this war does not lead to a much greater war, involving many more countries, and bringing about catastrophic suffering and loss of life in the world.

Third, pray for Ukraine because our brothers and sisters are there. The church in Ukraine will surely suffer during this war. Pray for the believers and for their families. Pray for ex-pat missionaries who have decided to remain (I know a few personally!), and for the witness of Christ in the region. Pray for those who will soon enter a season of persecution, that they might have the strength and that they remain faithful to Jesus, and that many others will “become much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Phil 1:14)” on account of their faithfulness.

My brothers and sisters, I urge you to pray for Ukraine.

Nasty Disturbing Uncomfortable Things That Make You Late for Dinner

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Through the years, I’ve received more than pleasure from reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. He had a deep and keen and helpful insight into life and human nature. Take, for instance, the dialog between Gandalf and Bilbo at the beginning of The Hobbit. Gandalf makes it known that he is looking for someone with whom to share in an adventure. Bilbo’s reply:

We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!

Then there is Bilbo, a scene or two later missing his beloved handkerchief, and Dwalin gives him a dose of life in the real world:

You will have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs, and a good many other things, before you get to the journey’s end.

Then, that made-famous-by-the-movie scene in The Fellowship of the Ring in which Frodo complains about the times into which he had been thrust (“I wish it need not have happened in my time.”), and Gandalf imparts to him this nugget of gold:

So do I and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

So.much.insight.

I woke up this morning thinking that I would much rather read an epic historical account than to continue living through one today. Why? Because adventures are nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things that make one late for dinner and forget his pocket-handkerchief. I didn’t choose this epoch. I didn’t choose this COVID-19 era, full of divisiveness and mandates and fear and meanness. Honestly, I am partial to arm chairs and fireplaces and pipes and books - far more than I am to adventures.

But that is not for me to decide. I don’t get to choose my trials or my suffering or my lot in life. God is sovereign and wise and good, and in that goodness and wisdom he has decided that I will live now, through this time (and that is true for you too, by the way). As Isaiah 46:10 says:

I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’

So, with Frodo, what we need to decide is what we will do with the time that is given to us.

And, frankly, we might have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs and a good many other things before we get to the journey’s end.

It’s Time to Be Real

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In the Fall of last year, I think in October, some friends hosted a party and the theme of that party was the Lord of the Rings, from those famous books of J.R.R. Tolkien. It was fun and many of us nerded-out when it came to costumes. My wife created a pretty awesome outfit for me. I dressed as Radagast the Brown, the eccentric wizard who loved animals and the forest and was probably a wee bit mental. The costume totally nailed it. I had a long beard, long hair with a birds nest in it. I looked just like him.

But I am not Radagast. I am Mike. I was merely dressing up – like many of us enjoy doing – as someone who I am not. I wasn’t being real that night. I was doing the opposite of being real. Later I took that costume off and put my clothing back on and that is when I was being real. Being real means wearing our own clothes.

In Colossians 3:8-14, Paul urged Christians to wear our own clothes. So out with our old, musty, worn out, out-of-fashion duds - like anger and malice and lying and slander. And no more dress-up costumes; we don’t need to pretend that we are something we are not.

Instead, we should wear the clothing of our new self, created in the likeness of God (see also Ephesians 4:17-24). We should put on garments of compassion and kindness and humility and forgiveness. And we can’t forget the belt which brings the whole outfit together: love.

That is what being real looks like. My fellow Christians, be real. And by that I mean wear YOUR clothing today. The beautiful garments that Jesus bought for you with his blood.

On Pastoral Expectations

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Why Are You So You?

The other day I was razzing one of my kids and she became frustrated and said, “Why are you so, so… so you?” Hmm. Fair enough.

Pastors don’t just get that question from their kids after a good bout of teasing, though. Most every pastor I know is asked that - sometimes with vitriol - by people in the church. So let’s think for a moment about the expectations Christians often have of their pastors.

I don’t have in mind the very healthy and biblical expectations that all of us should have of someone who is serving as an under-shepherd of God’s flock, such as the expectation of godliness, and the expectation that a pastor would devote himself with discipline and rigor to prayer and the ministry of the Word; the expectation that he would remain biblically qualified to hold his office or the expectation that a pastor would love the people entrusted to him. Those are very healthy expectations to have.

I have in mind the extra expectations people sometimes have because of a desirable trait or traits that they have observed in some other pastor but don’t see in their pastor, at least not in the same measure. Why aren’t you more funny? Why don’t you like the same authors I like? Why aren’t you a better conversationalist? Why are you sometimes reserved or awkward? Why are you so, so you? If you have an expectation of your pastor that isn’t stated in the Scriptures as an expectation of pastors/bishops/overseers/Christians, then that is an extra expectation, and the very sort I have in mind.

Most of the time, we have these expectations because we want more from a pastor than is right or good or healthy. That desire is usually rooted in selfishness and idolatry. But don’t let those two words - selfishness and idolatry - turn you off. Let me briefly explain before you turn off. 🙂

I think it is rooted in selfishness because central to such sentiments is our various needs which we demand to be met by our pastor. Of course, the pastor is supposed to meet certain needs of the flock. The pastor serves the congregation by shepherding and encouraging the church in godliness. He helps to meet a very real need we all have to be trained in the Word of God and to see how to apply the Word to our lives. He rebukes and encourages and equips and protects. Those are legitimate desires. We should want pastors to help us in those areas. It becomes selfish when we seek for the pastor to meet all of our “felt needs”, like the need to have someone around us who is of a certain temperament, or quick-witted, or funny, or chipper, or a great conversationalist.

Some pastors are better than others, and some men make awesome pastors. All pastors make horrible gods.

I think that sentiment is rooted in idolatry because we begin to look to the pastor to do for us what we should be looking to only God for. I know you know this, but it is a good reminder nonetheless: your pastor is not God. He is there to help point you to God, not be God for you, meeting all of your spiritual and emotional needs. I don’t mean that in a cold way. As a pastor, I desperately want to help people turn to God and find their rest and life in him. I try to do that well. But no matter how well a pastor does that, he is still not God. Some pastors are better than others, and some men make awesome pastors. All pastors make horrible gods.

If you woke up this morning and thought, boy I would really like to discourage my pastor today. Here is one of the easiest ways to do that. Send him an email or a text or drop by his study and ask him why he is so, so him. That will do it.

And a quick word to my pastor-brothers who might be feeling the weight of unmet and unhealthy expectations. But not a word from me. I am still fighting the same fight you are. Far better than my word is a quick word from the example of the Apostle Paul (Galatians 1:10): For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

How to Combat Those Monday Blues

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Every pastor knows how this feels because it happens every.monday.morning.

I’m usually emotionally zapped on Monday mornings. I spent the day before ministering to others, from morning to night. I preached my heart out, delivering a sermon I spent 20 hours preparing. I counseled and prayed with hurting people. I led an evening home group. I met with elders and prayed about the church and made tough decisions with them. And somewhere in that crazy day I also managed to spend some time with my wife and four kids. Now it is Monday. Oh blessed Monday!

Mondays are a slower day, typically, than the other days of my week. It is a day I typically spend almost entirely in my study at the church. Few people schedule counseling appointments on Mondays. I don’t have any Bible studies or small groups to meet with on Monday. I have few meetings of any kind on Mondays. At the church, there are a few people working and coming and going, but it is a relatively quiet day - unlike the rest of the week.

Those two things by themselves - my emotional exhaustion and the slow pace of the day - heighten the temptation to become discouraged. But on any given Monday there might be even more to it. Maybe the weekend didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Maybe someone made an overly-critical comment to me after the service (or a normal comment that felt overly critical to my overly-sensitive ears). Maybe no one said anything at all - not even a simple ‘thank you’ for preaching the Word. Maybe (and likely) I am overthinking things.

So now it is Monday and I have to begin again. A new week, with new Bible studies to lead, new counseling sessions, new people to serve, and a new sermon to prepare. New everything. Again.

Whatever the exact causes, the blues often knock on my door on Monday mornings. And, as a pastor I have to fight against it. So how do I do that? Here are three things that work for me when I get serious about the fight for joy on a Monday:

  1. I pray and read the Bible. It is essential for me to get up early on Monday mornings and spend time alone with God. I do that every day, but Mondays are especially important. I read the Bible and ponder how to apply the passages to my life - how God wants to speak this into my life. And I confess my wrong thinking, and my general self-absorption. I ask for God’s help to be self-forgetful, to seek to serve others, and to view the new day and the new week as gifts to be well-stewarded for the glory of God. I ask him for his strength and enabling grace to resist the temptation to be glum, and to rejoice in him. I do this in the morning and repeat as necessary throughout the day.
  2. I jump into the new week with gusto and work as hard as I can - prepare for as much as possible and get as far as I can on my sermon. Not only is this super helpful for my week’s workload and for productivity, it helps me stay encouraged. I think discouragement and laziness (or idleness) are first cousins, if not best buds. If I let discouragement take root, I will accomplish very little. And if I accomplish very little, discouragement will likely take root. So I work, asking God to help me keep my head in the game.
  3. I exercise. Never underestimate the emotional helpfulness of a good five-mile run, especially on a Monday! I try to run three times a week, but I try even harder to never miss a Monday.

These are the three main things that help me not fall to the temptation of self-absorbed discouragement. These things help me fight the Monday morning blues. What do you do?

Don’t Waste Your Pandemic

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Nearly 10 years ago, a famous pastor from Minnesota was diagnosed with cancer. On the eve of his surgery, John Piper wrote an essay called, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer.” It has helped thousands of people walk through cancer with a determination to glorify God with and through and in their trial. You can read that here. I’m shamelessly coopting the title to encourage you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, not to waste our pandemic. I want to focus my heart and mind on glorifying God through this, and I want to encourage others to do the same. So with that, here are some thoughts about not wasting our pandemic.

You will waste your pandemic if you fail to set your hope in our sovereign God. This, of all things, ought to humble the world and help us see how fragile we are, and how little control over things we actually have. A tiny, nearly invisible agent has shut down the most powerful countries on earth - nearly shut down all of the world! That’s humbling, and it ought to focus our hope in God.

Our ultimate hope can never be in preventative measures or in science or in medicine, as important as all these things are. We have to trust in God. He is God over all, big and small. From the mightiest nations to the tiniest microbes - he is Lord.

You will waste your pandemic if you spend all your time worrying about the future or complaining about the present. By all means, do what you can to secure your business, or find other employment, or whatever you can do today to keep food on the table. But doing things is different than worrying. You have no idea what tomorrow will bring (James 4:14), so leave tomorrow’s concerns to tomorrow and focus your efforts on today. Meditate on Philippians 4:4-7 (memorize it) and preach the truths of those verses to your soul until they stick there.

And complaining is about as helpful as worrying. Which is to say, it is not at all helpful. In fact, there is little in this world that is more faith-killing than a complaining or grumbling heart. So don’t give in to that. Start a journal and write down, every day, all the things for which you are thankful. Share the things for which you are thankful with those around you. Post evidence of thankfulness on your social media. Let the world know that we are thankful to the Lord, for he is good and his steadfast love endures forever. Read 1 Corinthians 10:10 to sober up from the stupor of complaint, and then drink deeply from passages like Psalm 136:1-26.

You will waste your pandemic if you spend all your time browsing or ranting on social media. Social media can be a wonderful thing during an event like this - an unprecedented means of communication while we are sheltered in place. Many thousands of Christians will be watching live-streamed sermons and services this Sunday from the safety of their own homes. We can easily check in on one another. We should be thankful for social media (and related technology). I’m thankful.

Yet, these things can also be a great means of discouragement. Christians would do well to stop Facebook shouting at their neighbors for either over or under-reacting (according to their superior, better-informed judgment). Please remember that the bridges you burn during this pandemic will likely stay burned after this is over. And people need love right now, especially from the children of God. So use this time to show love to your neighbors. And maybe turn the phone off and go read a book.

You will waste your pandemic if you focus only on your own needs. The world is reeling from this. Fear is everywhere. Use this time to show the love of Jesus to those around you. Call an elderly person and tell them you are praying for them and ask them what they need. Gather a list of needs and people and pray for them, every day. Seek for ways to serve others.

And do good things for your soul. If you have extra time off from work, spend that time with your family. Start up some online prayer groups (Zoom is an excellent tool for that). Read good books, go for a [socially-distanced] walk. Play a board game. Get on the floor and build a castle with your six-year old.

These are hard times. Let’s not waste them! Soli Deo gloria.