Hibernating In Your Home

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” – Jack London

I recently received a letter from an elderly couple who said that they had picked up some material about our ministry at a local Chick-fil-A restaurant. Specifically, they had read our monthly newsletter as well as a postcard promoting the QR code that links you directly to our daily devotional messages, such as the one you are currently reading.

The saddest part about their letter wasn’t their inability to use the QR code because they don’t have a smart phone. It wasn’t even the sobering fact that their son is incarcerated in a state prison in the Florida Panhandle, although that is admittedly very tragic. To me, the most disturbing information they shared was that – because of their paralyzing fear of contracting Covid or some other illness – they rarely leave their homes and wear masks whenever they do.

I am guessing that this precious couple’s son is imprisoned for committing a rather serious crime and I trust that he is putting his time behind bars to good use. However, it is one thing to be sentenced to prison by a judge in a court of law and another thing entirely to voluntarily agree to “house arrest” because you fear a potentially deadly disease.

From the handwriting in the letter, I would surmise that this couple is in their 80s, which means that they have already “beat the odds.” After all, the average life expectancy for an American man is 76.1 years and 81.1 years for an American woman. So why focus your time and energy trying vainly to cling to life – which ultimately is a losing battle – instead of “going for the gusto”?

To me, hibernating in your home instead of living life to its fullest is a tragedy of Greek proportions. The missed opportunities to evangelize the lost, to minister to the hurting, and to fellowship with other people – especially family members, close friends, and fellow believers – are incalculable.

In fact, this troubled couple’s behavior reminds me of the unprofitable servant in Matthew 25 who, instead of investing his master’s money while he was away, buried it in the ground. Not surprisingly, that servant was called “wicked and lazy” by the master when he returned and what little he had been entrusted with was given to a more industrious servant.

My advice is to seize and maximize every God-given opportunity and, when the time comes, to go down swinging!

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” I John 4:18 (NKJV)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President