Lessons from Quarantine
We were careful. We washed our hands. We didn’t leave the house except for groceries and exercise, and when we did, kept our socially responsible distance. Yet, Easter weekend arrived, and my wife Angie woke up with pretty obvious COVID-like symptoms. I myself have had some very minor symptoms, but nothing compared to what Ang was dealing with, which literally kept her asleep on the couch most of Saturday and Sunday.
As we settled into Easter Sunday evening, it became more apparent that her symptoms may last for an extended period of time. Even though it was moderate compared to the life-threatening cases we all hear about, the weakness and shortness of breath she experienced would severely limit her ability to be the active stay-at-home-mom that she is used to being.
Fortunately for me, my work has been extremely flexible for families coping with COVID. The message I got when I explained the situation to my team was, “take care of your family – we’ve got this.”
So, there I was, taking a “stay-cation” with my two boys while my wife rested and healed up. In reflection, the week reminded me of a few things I feel compelled to share.
The first is how much I love to spend long stretches of uninterrupted dad time with my kids! Yes, it can be challenging at times, but everything else gets put into perspective pretty quickly when spending time with them I love discovering more about their personalities as they continue to form.
Jude (2) is extremely sweet and is also our bold challenger of the two. It’s a lost cause when I realize I’m in the middle of a power struggle with him; he is not shy about what he want. Despite being told “no” at times, he will often take whatever action he deems necessary as his world crumbles around him. Jude is also our entertainer. It’s not uncommon for him to do or say something so weird and hilarious that the rest of us just look at each other, laugh and shake our heads in wonder of how he comes up with that stuff.
Cohen (5) is our critical thinker of the two. He asks SO MANY questions. Sometimes it’s exhausting (actually, a lot of the time), and usually it’s not something I have a lot of mental capacity for in a typical weekday when I’m done with work. But this week, I have all the time in the world. My favorite kind of questions are about things Cohen is recalling from the past and making connections to what we are doing in the moment. His creativity is a treat to observe.
My absolute favorite “Cohen” questions from this week were about song lyrics (we listen to a lot of music). He asked me the other day what a “beast” is and who can kill it. After honing it in with some follow up questions, I realized he was wondering why the people in the Eagle’s song Hotel California, “…just can’t kill the beast.” I explained the commonly used phrase as best as I could. He thought a bit more and said, “I think God and Jesus can.”
This surprised (and of course delighted) me at first. How could a five-year-old come up with this on his own? However, the more we talked about it, the more it made sense. I consistently stream a playlist of my favorite worship music throughout our house and many of those songs talk about the power of Jesus/God above any other power. Those songs declare things like, He’s our protector. Our healer. The list goes on. The more I think about this endless list of attributes for God, I wonder how I will explain them to my kids when they ask. I also start to question what these roles of God actually (tangibly) mean for me, and how can I point to these examples in my life? More on that later.
The second thing I realized this week is you can fill a lot of free time with young kids using water and dirt.
For the past few years, I’ve been developing a semi-elaborate above-ground sprinkler system to irrigate our entire yard. The annual assembly of said system quickly became a highlight for Cohen. Now Jude is following suit in his excitement. With the summer-like conditions this week (and frankly not much else of a time-filling plan) I opted to bust it out early this year. Needless to say, there was much rejoicing in the Visser household.
As for the dirt, we have an old garden box in our back yard that didn’t actually produce any notable vegetation in the years it was used. The problems are obvious when you examine the location of the box – it’s shaded by our south fence for most of the day and is tucked between multiple trees. As a result, there are hundreds of competing roots that fight for the same soil. Now that it’s converted to a dirt box for the kids, the dirt itself is still hard and clumps together with all the previously mentioned roots.
It seems like every year we pull a ton of roots out in an attempt to make it easier for the boys to dig and play. Yet, every year the roots remain because we would only remove a portion of them, or perhaps they grew back in. This year is no different, and as I sat beside the boys methodically digging, it was nearly impossible to ignore the life lesson that came to mind. Before you start thinking this is another overdone root metaphor (it kind of is, sorry), it might not be the one you assumed. Let me explain…
First, to make my illustration clear, “roots” represent habitual sin in our lives (and life = “dirt box”). We all have sin, just in different forms. One area that my mindset has been changed in recent months is how to deal with these persistent roots, and more importantly what my role is in removing them.
This idea of playing a role in fighting sin may resonate with you, but I’ve often had this picture of healing and restoration being a light switch God just flips. As if one day, in one instant, I would have a realization through a sermon, bible study, or self-help book. Or, maybe God would simply remove a sin pattern from me if I was diligent enough in my prayers or at the point He was ready to take it from me. To be clear, I’m not saying this cannot happen or that God doesn’t work in this way (I also can’t speak to the theology behind this debate). However, hoping that God would just take away my habitual sin without my active participation in combating that sin wasn’t working.
I read a book recently called The Bondage Breaker by Neil T. Anderson which has completely shifted my mindset around my role in extracting my “roots”. The book introduced me to a concept called the Battle for Our Minds. In short, we have patterns that we’ve learned apart from God, and those patterns don’t just get deleted when we make the choice to follow Jesus. Again, not to say God cannot instantly remove them, but this has not been my experience. When we repent of our sin, that is literally defined as “a change of mind” to alter our choices. The bible says God, “transforms you into a new person by changing the way you think (Romans 12:2).” However, this doesn’t say our life patterns or habits are instantly changed!
To make things more difficult, we have an enemy on this earth who wants to deceive us and keep us slaves to our own sin. This enemy attempts to control our thoughts in order to control our lives. If he convinces us that we have no power to overcome our sins, we will give up the battle more easily.
Whether it be spiritual affliction or internal thoughts/temptations (it ultimately doesn’t matter which), the battle for our mind is real. We must have the discipline to avoid sin and the realization that if we do not resist sin, God will not do it for us.
Perhaps I can let Neil T. Anderson say it best -- this is directly from The Bondage Breaker (p.199):
“Suppose a person [cries out], “God, do something,” and nothing happens. So the person [wonders], Why not, God? You are all-powerful. Why won’t you help me? Don’t you love me? Maybe I’m not a Christian, and that is why God hasn’t answered. That is the mental and emotional status of most people I have worked with. They question God’s presence, question His love for them, and question their salvation. Why didn’t God do something? He did. He disarmed the devil, forgave our sins, made us a new creation in Christ and positioned us with Christ in the heavenlies at the Father’s right hand. Whose responsibility is it to submit to God and resist the devil? Whose responsibility is it to put on the armor of God, take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, stand firm in the faith, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts? Can we assume that there will be no negative consequences if we don’t carry out our responsibility? Will God bail us out if we don’t? I have not seen that happen.”
Back to the root problem in my backyard dirt box. If I liken the battle for my mind to the battle for my dirt box, I see that it will take work on my part to clear out this space permanently instead of kicking the can another year. Also, I will need to guard myself against the roots that will try to grow back again and again each year. Sin will not fix itself without me playing an active role.
The good news is, as a Christian, I know it’s not just me on my own – that’s where Jesus steps in. When I think about the previously mentioned conundrum on how to answer questions my kids might have about attributes of God, I think about how these attributes impact my life, and it starts to become clearer. Singing songs that Jesus is my strength, my encourager, and my hope is now more real to me because I know the role He plays and the role I must play in partnership with Him. I have the confidence of what He accomplished on the cross, knowing He’s given me all the authority of the Holy Spirit and the strength I need to overcome the temptation of my habitual sin. As the bible says, “He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand.”(1 Corinthians 10:13).”
The best way I can testify to these truths is that I’ve already seen the impacts in my life of winning this battle. In the past when I’ve tried to resist certain temptations, I would reason myself into them. I would say, “It shouldn’t be this hard to get past this, so maybe it can’t be that bad. After all, I’m only human.” After giving into the temptation, part of me would wonder, “Am I really a Christian if I continue to struggle with these things? Where is this freedom from Christ that I hear about?”
Now, I understand the battle! I can see past the reasoning my mind steers toward and am more apt to cut temptation off at the very beginning. Am I perfect? Of course not! Do I still mess up? Of course I do. Now, I can genuinely say I’ve made choices, with confidence (through Christ) in my power over them, to avoid some of the habitual sins that have plagued me in the past.
Beyond this, what’s even cooler is that I’ve gained an unexpected sense of anticipation to take on even more of the roots in my life. The small ones are easier of course, but I’ve even started to chip away at the bigger ones. In time, I’m confident that through the power of Jesus, and my active participation, I’ll come out the other side more Christ-like than before.
With that in mind, back to digging – I have work to do!
- Written by Dave Visser
