As I sat in front of my Bible today, I prayed about whether I was doing too much – or too little – during this coronavirus season.
So far this season, I’ve taken advantage of the extra time to catch-up on a lot of things: being more intentional with my kids, completing work tasks, home improvement jobs, finding unique ways to reach out to neighbors, fostering community with several different pockets of people in my world.
But lately it seems that I’ve seen a lot of posts, texts and comments encouraging people to take a step back and take advantage of this “pause” and allow ourselves to breathe and that it’s ok to spend this lockdown season trying to cope.
So then I started wondering, am I doing too much? Am I just perpetuating the same busyness of life that God is trying to redirect me out of? And then this verse came to mind.
“He who watches the wind will not sow and he who looks at the clouds will not reap. Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things. Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.” Ecclesiastes 11:4-6.
The first sentence is basically saying that people who are always waiting for the perfect conditions in their circumstances before they start something, will never start something.
Then a couple verses later, it talks about “sowing your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening.” Many times, the use of the time of day is a metaphor for different seasons of life. In the “morning” we are re-energized, we have a fresh start and have the hope of the entire day before us. I think most of us will find that it’s easy to “sow seeds” in those circumstances. When the world is good and hopeful.
But it also says “do not be idle in the evening.” The “evening” is when you’re exhausted, you’ve depleted all your physical and emotional energy, you’ve put in a good day’s work but now the sun is setting and so is your hope or motivation to do anything further with your day. You deserve a break and the conditions of your season give you full justification to be done for the day and you can start up again in the morning.
And I think that is where many people are getting stuck. It’s not the morning and it seems like a pandemic should give you full justification to take the next several months to “rest” until it is morning again. But Ecclesiastes is clear. “Do not be idle in the evening.”
I absolutely believe in mental health and allowing yourself time to rest and process all that is happening. I understand that it can be a lot to take in and we shouldn’t just bulldoze through it. “Rest” is not only essential to our well-being, it is commanded by God.
But “rest” can easily turn into “idleness” if we don’t keep it in check. Remember that although God commanded us to rest, He also worked for six days and only rested one day. He created us for work and when we fall into idleness, a slew of negative mental consequences can slowly take over our lives.
After reading through those verses, I felt complete peace – in the balance. Because the answer to whether or not I should be doing more, was “no.” And the answer to whether or not I was doing too much, was also “no.”
No, you should not be carrying on with the same busyness that your life held before as if nothing has happened. But also, “no”, you should not allow this season to pull you so far out that you become unproductive. There’s a balance and too far in either direction is unhealthy.
I believe there are three primary things that we should be doing in this season:
1. Step back. But only for as long as you need to in order to move forward again. These shutdowns are bringing on a lot of life changes for all of us and it’s a lot to process. Take this divine “pause” to step back from your life and consider what you were spending your time on, where you want your life to go and what people, tasks and things are really valuable to where you want to be. Take time to rest and ponder life in general.
2. Re-evaluate. Take this opportunity to inventory everything in your life – spiritually, physically and emotionally. Whatever you are dealing with and feeling – get it all out and then lay it all out before God. Every question, every fear, every doubt, every anxiety, every task, every person. Everything that floods your brain – or the concern you have that nothing floods your brain. Lay it out and ask God to show you what needs to be tossed, what needs to be changed and what needs to be added.
3. Move forward. Don’t stay in step #1 for longer than you need. No matter what the circumstances are, we need to find ways to move forward. This will look different for each person and should be exclusively dependent on what happens in step #2. For someone who deals with severe depression, “moving forward” may start with small, ordinary tasks like getting out of bed and brushing your teeth – and that’s an accomplishment. For someone who deals with lack of motivation, “moving forward” might be setting one productive-task for yourself each day and doing that one thing before you spend the rest of the day on the couch. For someone who just feels lost entirely, “moving forward” might be starting with some prayer and reading God’s Word and really focusing on making Jesus more of a personal relationship rather than a religious one.
The beautiful thing about having a “moving forward” mindset, is that it only takes one small step for you to gain enough momentum to take the next and the next and the next and before you know it, you are moving forward again. Albeit, your movement may look different now, it can be in a different direction and it can be to grow more in one area more-so than another – like growing more spiritually rather than productively – but it’s still moving forward. And in times of crisis, when all things are uncertain, finding the courage to move forward anyway is a pretty huge win.
