Staying Whole While Staying Home
For the last 3 weeks, and at least the next 3, our entire nation and much of the world has been staying home in an effort to flatten the curve and decrease the pandemic spread of COVID-19. If you’re like me, you’ve napped, binged on Netflix shows, made repeated unnecessary trips to the refrigerator, and done some projects at home that you might not have ever gotten to without this sort of shift in our lives. For most of us, we have time now that we didn’t have before.
Time is the kind of resource that has to be leveraged intentionally if success is going to be achieved. Many of us are working from home (and seemingly busier than otherwise), and we are spending far more time in our homes than we normally would. Taking full advantage of this time includes us giving attention to the areas in our lives that are fragmented.
I want to invite you to consider your own journey of wholeness – where are you and what progress are you making? A busy life can lull us into this sort of automated pattern that ignores the needs that our journey of wholeness requires. Here’s a sobering reality: wholeness is never accidental. If you’re going to be whole spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially, or relationally, it’s going to be because you’re intentional about working towards that wholeness.
The journey to wholeness is nonlinear. It’s not going to be a perfect experience of constant betterment – but our consistency can help us to be sure that in the highs and lows of life, we’re generally growing by coming off the sidelines of our own wholeness process. Staying whole while staying home demands that we take an honest look at ourselves and become active participants in our own development.
We are all at a crossroad that is requiring us to act our choice – to either waste the time we have or to maximize it. Wasting the time will result in us being in the same positions or a worse after not investing time and energy into what will make us more knowledgeable, healthier, and better prepared for the future. Maximizing the time will take place if we invest energy into what will make us more knowledgeable, healthier, and better prepared for the future. Staying whole while staying home will happen when we commit to remaining engaged in our personal well-being.
Some people will come out of this stay-at-home season with entrepreneurial ideas, new skills, new knowledge, or just rested minds. While all of those are good, I encourage you to include WHOLENESS in what you pursue during this time. While you’re staying home, resist the urge to waste the time with entertainment, napping, and snacking alone. Be whole.
My prayer for you is Paul’s words to the Thessalonians – “May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together - spirit, soul, and body - and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 MSG).
