Day 30  -  March 18

Joseph E. Arnold

Remind ~ Psalm 106:6–7, 19–23

Sitting here in the 11th month of working from home, logging in remotely, visiting campus every other week, cutoff physically from many family and friends it can be easy to fall into the trap of woe is me.  When with even some short-term perspective it is easy to be reminded of how lucky I am to be working, to have a home and food on the table.

One of my hobbies is genealogy, which gives me a little bit longer of perspective to look at, and compared to most of my ancestors, I have it pretty good.  I am not being held as a prisoner of war; I am not wondering if I will go hungry if the crops fail; I am not having soldiers knock at the door looking to be fed.  Even in these dark days of the pandemic, I have blessings to count.

As natural as it is to feel down about not being able to see friends or to go out and socialize and move about like normal, I can remind myself that I am part of something bigger and doing my part by staying socially distant.  There is nothing but ill to be gained by throwing caution to the wind and going back to the old days and the old idols.

Moses was with the people at Mount Sinai in the desert, socially distant from both Egypt and the promised land.  In the scripture for today, we see that the people have given in and abandoned their trust in God and sought something more satisfying in the moment, putting their future in jeopardy, forgetting the past and all the mighty works and labors that got them to this place.

In the midst of this pandemic don’t forget where we have been and where we are going.

Reflection: What do you need to be reminded of?