A devotion for the time of COVID

Devotional for the time of COVID

2 Timothy 1:6-7 should be our go-to Biblical precept at this time.

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

In speaking to Timothy, his mentee in the faith, Paul wants to encourage Timothy not to let his in-born and culturally nurtured sense of inadequacy rule him. He wants him to not let older people’s opinions of him diminish his sense of mission and purpose, of giftedness and calling. He wants Timothy to know that he is prayed for. He reminds him of the background of sincere, genuine faith that Timothy saw in his mother and grandmother, not because Timothy inherited it but because he was allowed to see it on a daily basis and it formed a foundation for him. He reminds him that elders and Paul himself laid hands on Timothy to initiate his ministry, a sign that the church saw his giftedness and approved of it.

We often overlook verse 4: “greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy.” Why was Timothy full of tears? Was Timothy having a crisis of faith? Was he clinically depressed? Was he realizing his own immaturity and sense of unpreparedness?

We can’t know, but we can read between the lines and see Timothy was, well, a bit of a mess. Like us.

I’m more conscious of my desire for control and the folly of that desire now. A lot of that consciousness has come from COVID. Despite my strong resolution to live as normally as possible in this time, to not succumb to apathy and ennui and Netflix binging and Moose Tracks ice cream, I can’t pretend I’m not affected by the isolation or the restrictions on freedom of movement. And I won’t get my late July vacation this year, which I feel acutely.

But back to Timothy. While we can’t diagnose Timothy with some sort of mental health problem, we can read what Paul said to him.

1.     Stir up the gift. I have a note in my Bible that some preacher somewhere sometime paraphrased this as “throw a log on your passion.” I think the image is more, “there are embers there, but you need to get a poker and move those logs around to spread the fire and rekindle it; you might need to throw some more tinder on those logs, but they are still good logs with a lot of fire left in them.”  The phrase “which is in you” should not be interpreted that the gift of God was Timothy’s through some natural process; it’s there through the act of laying on hands. At this point we can’t go into the depth of what “laying on of hands mean”—perhaps in another place—but it refers to a communal church authority as well as a Spirit-empowerment.

2.     Why should he do this?  Because Timothy can’t allow himself to be defeated by his fear, and that defeat can’t happen because that kind of fear is not of God. Reverential fear of the power and might of God is holy, but what Timothy is suffering under is a different kind of fear, and it is not of God. This kind of fear is defined here by what it is NOT: it has nothing to do with power, love, or a sound, disciplined mind.

3.     The spirit God has given us—I believe he is talking about the Holy Spirit here—is of power and love and a sound mind. First, power over fear and its causes in the past or our psychological makeup. We hear the expression “hard-wired” a lot these days, something I find odd, except in the sense that our neuronal pathways are something like the connections in a computer. There’s no hardness or wiring about it, though. These pathways are constantly firing and being reformed by experience and learning and memory and even our putting our thoughts into words (which is why journaling is so vital to Christian growth).  How much power do we need in our daily lives, much less in 2020? This is external power, not power that we gin up from within, because it’s usually not there. God has given us.

Second, love. Have we lost love in our fear? Are we displaying the love of God to neighbors, or are we letting our fear of a microbe keep us from obedience? And third, a sound mind. This is the balancing act. Notice it is a three-legged stool, and there is no such thing as a two-legged stool (well, perhaps there is, but generally it doesn’t sound like a good idea).  Power—from God. Love—the ability to extend beyond ourselves in service. Sound mind—don’t be stupid. Think clearly. Fear causes us not to think rationally. It either shuts us down or makes us believe conspiracies and every piece of information on Facebook.

Early on, and even now, there is a huge amount of misinformation on “media” about COVID. At one point it was said drinking more water helped “dilute” COVID. Another said that you could self-diagnose by holding your breath for ten seconds. Those who could were free of COVID. These seem silly now, but let’s be honest; we don’t know everything we think we know. As in most of life, the science and our knowledge of events is tentative. I choose not to live in fear and not to imprison myself in the four walls of my apartment or home. I also choose to heed reasonable advice, because reasonable is the best we have now. 

My plea: Live in the power and love and sound, disciplined thinking that God has freely given us. Don’t, please don’t, live in fear. It will destroy you, your relationships, your health, and your spirit.