Let us learn contentment, be creative and be confident. The Lord is our salvation. We are not our own, we are His. It is time we quit living like God exists for our happiness and start living like we exist to exalt Him and be His people in His world. “And He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15). God help us.

Many of us are now a couple of weeks into social distancing, home schooling, working from home, fighting toilet paper wars, isolating, and washing grocery packaging; activities we did not imagine a month ago. We could do videos on proper handwashing and take calls for the CDC on COVID-19 symptoms. Some days we’ve read ten articles on social media, and they seldom agreed with each other; and the same conflicting information is in the news media. All of us are tired and many of us are scared; scared not only for the health of family and friends and our own health, but if we will have income when this is over, a place to live, what life will be like.

I write this especially for those of us who are not on the front lines of fighting this pandemic; those heroes need a whole different mindset than we do. For those of us not on the front line, there are three things that are important for us to do now. I know we could come up with other things, but these three are crucial, for us to have the proper mindset going forward. A lot has been written about overcoming fear with faith, and that is good; that is the first level of thinking we need to consider. Now we come to the next level; that level calls us to engage ourselves in constructive ways and to have hope for the future.

First, we must learn contentment. In Phil. 4: 11,12, the Apostle Paul writes of having learned contentment. He had experienced times when he greatly lacked the comforts, even what seemed to be the necessities of life, and better times when he had more than enough. You and I have known times of more than enough; some of us are entering into a time when we may be lacking some of what we used to enjoy and took for granted. In another place, on the subject of money, the Apostle writes, “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content” (I Tim. 6:8). You may be thinking that as a Christian, this isn’t really what you signed up for. And then there’s Jesus teaching us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Mt. 6:11); not, “Give us this day our daily bread and a cruise in the Caribbean, a new pickup, a nice raise in salary and bonus at the end of the year.” Don’t misunderstand, God does not tell us that a life of poverty is a sign of spirituality; no, He often gives an abundance, richly supplying us with much to enjoy (I Tim 6:17). But with COVID-19, we may find our lives so interrupted from what we knew, that we will be having trouble coping with the new normal. Anger, frustration, complaining are not options for us as Christians. God’s will is, “Do all things without grumbling…” (Phil. 2:14). There are Christians suffering a lot worse than we are, and they have been for some time. We are to be light to the world around us, and a complaining spirit is darkness. Besides, people are tired of listening to us complain, and no one cares about all we complain about except our mother, and that’s because she wants us to be “happy.”

How shall we learn contentment? The same way the Apostle Paul did. He learned it by going to Christ for strength, by seeing things through His eyes, by understanding what’s most important in life according to His wisdom. Are we His or not? If we are His, then let us be taught by Him. If you do not learn contentment in Christ’s school, then you are going to end up being a bitter, complaining, angry, and pathetic person. Study Christ, study His life, think His thoughts, and you will find a freedom and joy and contentment that this world could never give you. And don’t forget, Paul learned this over time; he didn’t pray a prayer and attend a weekend seminar of contentment. You might say, you are going to have to be content to learn contentment over time; but, the result of it all is that you will learn contentment.

Second, we must be creative. These are special times, and it isn’t business as usual. Jobs are going to be lost. Businesses are going to fail. We aren’t going to wake up two months from now and find out that no one has been hurt and everything has returned to normal and it was all a bad dream. No, it’s a nightmare now; but we can do something about it. God our creator has made us in His image to rule over His creation, and part of our responsibility is to live creatively in His creation (Gen. 1: 26-28).  We must not be lazy and waste time on social media and watching news networks all day. We aren’t to wait around for the government or some other person or entity to come along and take care of us. No, we are to be up and active, thinking, learning, acquiring skills, developing talents, etc. Some of us may have to train for new jobs. Some may have to invite relatives to come live with them. When Jacob and his family found themselves in a famine, we read, “Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, “Why are you staring at one another?….go down there and buy some (grain) for us….so that we may live and not die” (Gen. 42:1,2). When God put Adam in the garden, Adam was to use his wisdom to cultivate it; when Israel entered the Promised Land there was work to do to subdue it. Let’s pretend it’s April, 2021, a year from now; what can we say that we have accomplished? How did we spend our time? What did we do to cope with our circumstances? Yes, we are to pray and worship and trust the Lord, but we are to be doers and thinkers upon our circumstances as well. We are made in His image; God has made us for this. And don’t forget about using creativity to help others in need; to be a friend, a helping hand.

Third, we must be confident. It’s sad how negative Christians can be, sometimes, especially when we are the only ones with the God given right to be positive. In the same place the Apostle Paul speaks of contentment, he mentions that God will supply all our needs (Phil. 4:19). Remember, it is for the Christian that all things happen for the good (Rom. 8:28); we may not recognize it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The Lord really is our Shepherd Who is with us in the valley of the shadow of death, but also in all the other times of our life (Ps. 23). The promise of God throughout scripture is that He is with His people. Whether it is to Joshua with the challenge of taking and subduing the Promised Land (Josh. 1:9), or Jesus commissioning His disciples to go into all parts of the world to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:20), the point is that He is always with us; and that is why we can be confident about the future. Our confidence is not in us and our resourcefulness, or even in our believing; no, it is in Him Who is with us and Who loves us and gave Himself for us. Remember the charge to Joshua, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” But someone says, “What if I die?” What do you mean, “if”? Of course you are going to die; we all are, eventually; maybe not as a result of this pandemic, but we are going to die. And Christ has that covered too, having reconciled us to God and having gone to prepare a place for us. For now, we are to concentrate on living; He says we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt. 5:13,14), so let’s start being that which He has made us to be.

Let us learn contentment, be creative and be confident. The Lord is our salvation. We are not our own, we are His. It is time we quit living like God exists for our happiness and start living like we exist to exalt Him and be His people in His world. “And He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15). God help us.

K.W. “Pete” Hurst is a retired minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He is an Associate Broker in real estate living in Yorktown, Virginia. This article is used with permission.