I just made up a word. Pandemiportunity. I doubt it will catch on. But somebody came up with “brunch” and “hangry.” So…who knows?
What is a pandemiportunity? It is an opportunity provided by the experience of the pandemic we’ve endured over the last sixteen months.
It was a hard and disastrous year in many ways. Perhaps you or someone you know actually suffered Covid-19. Perhaps someone you know died. Perhaps you suffered isolation, or job loss, or financial uncertainty. You certainly experienced massive changes in your daily routine, and your ability to interact with others. Many experienced intense loneliness.
Yet it was also good and beautiful in many ways. Many experienced this break of routine as a time of new beginnings. Some families found the new found rhythms of time together to be an opportunity to connect around family meals, game nights, or even just in conversation. Breaking from (bad) financial habits gave people an opportunity to rethink how they spent money. So…some good stuff.
What does it mean spiritually? Certainly for the church it presented many challenges – we had to stop doing many of the things we think of as normal. For eleven weeks we met online only. We are only now ready to restart some programs like Sunday School. But, it was also good for our church in many ways. People stepped up to serve one another in important ways. Our giving actually increased during the pandemic. We’ve seen an uptick in visitors from our pre-pandemic days.
What about for you personally and for your spiritual growth? Having been rattled out of “normal,” what opportunities are available to you to allow God to use this for good in your life and walk with him?
Pray, and ask God to use the present moment as a pandemiportunity to grow in him.
