The days that you have.
I was talking to a man the other day (no-one that you would know) and he made the comment that he hoped this lockdown would end soon otherwise he reckoned there would be mass civil disobedience and hinted that he would be at the centre of it. The reason he gave was this “when you get to my time of life you haven’t got much longer and every week is valuable (I guess he’s in his mid-seventies). The implication was that days under lockdown are simply wasted days, days without lockdown are valuable days.
And I fully understand what he meant, and he isn’t a Christian and so his views are bound to be different to mine. But when we turn to God’s Word we don’t find Him defining days in this way – there simply aren’t days that are automatically wasted and others that are automatically good. Some Christians spend their whole adult life in prison for their faith – those certainly aren’t wasted days, some missionaries work in a land for decades without seeing a single convert – those aren’t wasted days. Rather it all depends on what we do with that day, and that principally in terms of growing in Christ-likeness, serving God and serving others; none of which, as far as I can see, are limited or impossible because of lockdown.
So how can I make sure that these days are valuable days rather than wasted days? Firstly, recognise that our days are few and therefore to be used well whether under lockdown or not. The Psalmist said:
Psa_90:12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
The meaning is – teach us to be realistic in our appreciation of how brief life is, to appreciate how quickly we can arrive at the end of it, so that we invest our time in gaining divine wisdom.
And that is to be the goal, to grow day-by-day in our understanding of scripture and delight in it, our love and understanding of God, our grasp of what holiness looks like and pursuit of it. And if, at the moment, you can’t do much to serve God and others, then at least be preparing yourself for when you can! That is what makes a day a ‘valuable’ day. A day spent socialising, lying in the sun on the beach, with no thought for God, no thought for His Word, no thought for Christ-likeness would be a totally wasted day.
John Piper wrote a book entitled “Don’t waste your life” and it’s a brilliant book. The theme was based on a speech he gave many years ago to students that you can see on YouTube (it only lasts about 7.5 mins.
Friend, if you are thinking that these are ‘wasted’ days and wanting them to be over so that you can get back to the ‘valuable’ days, can I encourage you to think again, and make these days as valuable or even more so than the ones that went before!