Coronavirus is scary. Certainly a few important questions come to mind:
When will it end? Will we survive? How will we pay the bills? How will I survive the boredom of being stuck inside with nothing to do?
The good news is that God ordered Israel to stop often…not just once a week. There were good reasons for that. Here are a few tips I have come up with from my first week of lockdown:
- Spend more time with your children and spouse.
- Make memories!
- We played Dodgeball as a family in our small yard.
- Noah and have time to play Chess
- We have played FIFA on the Playstation (but not too much)
- We enjoy cooking together
- We are praying together (more later)
- Get ahead with your reading while enjoying a nice fire
- Readers are leaders!
- My goal is 40 books this year! I track my reading with Goodreads.
- Video courses are good too! Melodee and I are signed up to a thinking course and I am signed up to a coaching course and a course on the book of Romans.
- Catch up on sleep
- Ahhh..the elusive eight hours of sleep! Its amazing how much better I can think when I take care of my sleep!
- Enjoy the break! Trust in God! Rest is an act of faith in God’s ability to meet our needs.
- Sometimes our sleep deprivation is not due to an actual need, but to bad choices. Netflix even admits that they’re main competition is with sleep!
- Catch up on your housework
- Put stuff away finally! Or get the kids to put their stuff away!
- Declutter your life. Evaluate what you have, what you actually need, what you could get rid of.
- Care more about those who are at risk with the virus
- We have several in our congregation that are high risk. We pray for them and keep in touch with them. Unfortunately many older people have died because of the indifference of people toward keeping the virus from spreading.
- Family worship
- We had an extraordinary time of worship Sunday as a family. Melodee played the piano, I played guitar, Noah ran the PowerPoint off our TV and Eva stood up and sang her heart out! Of course the kids enjoyed choosing the songs, and Noah even read us a Psalm!
- Our kids loved it! They want to do it again! I only asked why we had not done this sooner…it took a worldwide pandemic to make this possible!
- The opportunity to team up with others
- Daniel and Danilo worked feverishly to get something up for our team.
- Wednesday night’s test run was incredibly well attended and there was very good interaction. Danilo’s sister even recorded herself singing along with the worship songs!
- You can see the service here.
Leading Worship on Streaming 
Daniel Preaching on Streaming
You can join our services too! Click here!
- Encourage others
Make time to encourage others or to show the love of Christ, even to unbelievers. People are more then ever hungry to make sense of all this. They are more than happy to receive a verse of encouragement in a time such as this. Make the most of every opportunity! Ephesians 5:16- Use Facebook
- Connect with Whatsapp. Here in Italy most people use this way to send text messages, video conference calls and audio message, as well as Bible verses!
- Make a phone call (novel idea!)
- Realize how much you love your church
- Our church people are writing up a storm of encouraging messages!
- Our people would have been willing to be infected by the virus to spend time together! Fortunately with today’s technology that is not necessary!
- Stop to realize how much you love and need God
- Get your prayer life and devotional life back on track.
- Read some deeper books about life. Journal. Pray. Meditate on God’s word.
- Read some puritans, or even better read through the Psalms, or Romans! Or Job!
Don’t get frustrated if you don’t get to do all that you hope to do.
You have to roll with the punches a bit, especially with children, but I guarantee that it will be a memorable time that God can use in your life!
What is your list? Feel free to come up with your own list and share it here!
Jon and Melodee—- that is BEAUTIFUL!!! Would you mind if I shared this in Facebook?
Great post, Jonathan! Thanks for sharing your insights, as so many of us need them now. You now have a ministry you never envisioned before!
Hi John and Melody. Great article – very helpful and encouraging. I am going to read it to my church small group on Sunday. We are praying for you and your family. God bless.
This is so excellent Jonathan. God bless.
I pray daily for you all and I love you.
Dawniek
Excellent insights. I agree wholeheartedly! At least John & I no longer have kids in the home to entertain, but there are so many worthwhile ways to use our time and focus on things that matter. Being told to stay home is actually what we benefit from the most sometimes. Keep up the good work. Love to all. ☺️
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Our life has certainly slowed way down,but not a bad thing! We have enjoyed each other and spending time together! We have been working together to clean out cubby holes! We have been reflecting on God’s goodness to and to know that He is in control of all things! We could go on and on,these are just a few things! We have been praying for all of Italy and you folks there! So thankful your folks are in the states! Hang on Jesus is coming! !!!
Praying for you all in ltaly!
Great article Jonny! love you !
DAD
Great article Jonny! love you !
DAD
Good job son. I had to find this to read since several folks mentioned how helpful it was. I loved hearing of your home worship service. I wish I had been a mouse in your living room.
Wonderful! I have prayed that you would use this time for family growth and spending time with your kids. So glad to hear all these ideas.
Of course Becky!!
Thank you Dr. Joy!
Thank you John! I’m glad if it can be of blessing to anyone!
Thank you Dawnie!
Thank you Karen!
Amen!
Thank you! Stay safe! God is in control!
Thanks Dad!
Hopefully we will do it again!!
I hope they help!
I love you too!
Jonathan, Great post. Thanks for taking time to share it and challenging me.
Thank you Betty!!
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