“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11

During the COVID-19 quarantine, I have been going to work each day. However, my wife and kids have pretty much been stuck at home. It seems like they are developing “cabin fever.” Over the weekend, they seemed to be a little cranky especially when I started rationing the remaining toilet paper. They became even more upset when I started cutting their hair. By the way, my wife looks great with a bowl haircut.

In order to alleviate their boredom, I put the kids to work. For the past few weeks, they have been peeling old wallpaper and painting. That seemed to make them even angrier. Since they didn’t like painting, I made them clean out the garage. Guess what? They hated that too.

Because we couldn’t go anywhere, I did my best to come up with a stay-at-home activity the whole family would love. I tried boardgames. I quickly discovered that kids who have spell-check on all their electronic devices are easy to beat at Scrabble. After my forty-second consecutive Scrabble victory, they got frustrated and quit.

Since all the churches are closed, every preacher in America is now a televangelist. So, I thought it would be fun to check out some of the other pastors on YouTube, and I made my wife and kids watch with me. The experience was, well, interesting… If your pastor wears skinny jeans when he shouldn’t, you might want to get a new pastor. If your pastor says his favorite hymn is Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” you might want to get a new pastor. If your pastor is over 30 years old and frosts the tips of hair, you might want to get a new pastor. If your pastor gets more theology from Joel Osteen books than the Bible, you might want to get a new pastor.

Anyway, after watching three or four bad internet preachers, my wife and kids were really agitated. My ten-year-old son, John said, “I’m so bored. I just want to go someplace. I just wish this mess was over and the world would reopen.” I looked at John and said, “I do too, son.”

My family, like most people today, just wants to go somewhere. Right now, it feels like the world has stopped, but that’s not really the case. Every second the earth is moving 18.5 miles in its journey around the sun. Every tick of the clock, you are 18.5 miles away from where you were before the last tick. If you count to 10, you are about 200 miles away from the place you were when you started counting. The earth is always going places. Since you are on the earth, you are always going places too.

Not only is that true physically, but it’s also true spiritually. Every soul is moving either toward God or away from God. You are going someplace. You are meant to go to heaven. That is why God says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you… thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). God wants to bring you to a good place. Since you’re going places anyway, make sure you’re always moving toward God and not away from Him.

The point is: Even under lock-down, you are going places. It is impossible to stay put. But you have a choice on your direction. You can either move toward, or away from God.

Where do you think you’re going?

James Collins is the senior pastor of First Southern Baptist Church where “Drive-In Church” will be held this Sunday. Find out more information at www.fortscottfsbc.com.

After this Covid-19 virus passes, I hope we learn a few things.

I hope we learn the importance of saving. Proverbs 21:20 makes that clear. The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down. According to Bankrate.com, more than one in five Americans don’t save any of their annual income. For those who do, twenty percent have put back only five percent or less of what they make. What would have happened if our government had not bailed us out? My widowed mother raised three of us on minimum wage. The first check she wrote each month was her tithe. If she did not have enough money to purchase something, we went without, including a television and a car. We rented until she saved the cash to buy a home. She never had a credit card. Had this virus hit when we were young, we probably would have been much better off than some of my friends’ families….you know, the ones with the beautiful homes, the Country Club memberships, and a huge amount of credit card debt.

I am grateful that we live in America where Uncle Sam is looking after us. My Hispanic friend from Mazatlán recently sent an email sharing that, since the Mexican government is doing NOTHING to bail out businesses or individuals, people are figuring out ways to help each other. This is what she shared: “Buenos Dias Sra Patty…By the fishermen monument, there is an area where are many little boats called pangas. The fishermen took their nets and went to the ocean, they got so many fish, a lot and they asked people to take it to eat. This was wonderful. At the department stores, there is a table with a note. If you need something take it, if you could donate something leave it. I saw people taking two things off the table. I love to see it too. By my place 3 days ago a lady was passing by yelling.Tamales, 2 per person for free. Senora Patty, this kind of things make my heart feel good.

Proverbs 6:6-8 encourages us to learn our saving habits from the lowly ant: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” The Bible has much to say about saving. For one, our money is not ours; it is God’s. In times such as this, how nice would it be to be able to help our neighbors because we had “stored” some provisions and not lived above our means? Instead, I’ve met too many Americans who save only to have a cushy life when their working days are over. A leisurely “Retirement” becomes their payoff, yet even Jesus admonished the person whose goal was to save in order to have a comfy life instead of taking care of real needs as a thank-you for God’s provisions.

In Luke 12: 16-21, Jesus shares this parable: The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” And he said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Retirement for Christians should not be self-centered. It should be the time when we devote ourselves to serving others with our time and resources.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am grateful that we live in the United States where businesses can be saved and families can eat because of the bail-out. I just hope that when this virus is over, we all might rethink our financial priorities and learn from the lowly ant…the wise, working, lowly ant.