MINDS UNLOCKED May 29, 2020

Today’s devotional is on the letter of Apostle Paul to the Galatians, chapter 4.  It talks about how as Christians, though we are called children of GOD, we should not literally think like so because the longer we are in the faith, the more mature should be our outlook on life.  And so, we must think like sons—who are ready to take on responsibilities and leadership roles.

The apostle expounded on the differences between those people who still think and act like overgrown children, versus the freedom and the responsibilities of those who are mature.  And I cannot help but notice that so many of these are still true today, thousands of years after the epistle was written.

Because of a pandemic, we were all placed in quarantine.  Even at the outset, a lot of seemingly bright minds had a lot of complaints, even without knowing the full story—how the disease came to be, how it spread, how to control and eliminate it.  True, even the experts do not yet know everything, but far too many lacked the one trait truly mature people exhibit in the face of uncertainty—patience.  And maybe because they were all gone, we lost the lessons learned by the greatest generation during the second world war, many (especially in the world’s greatest nations) went through their lockdown days like headless chickens, not properly protecting themselves and getting infected, arguing that it is a cultural thing and that they wouldn’t adapt what Asian countries do in flu season.  At least during the war, bombs and air raids were visible and audible.  CoViD-19/SARS CoV2 is neither.

With life as we knew it put on hold, and many sources of income gone, people are in desperate straits.  But a thief is a thief still. A glutton and a greedy person will always want everything for themselves first, even if they already have much, and many others around them--because these are not political affiliates--go hungry.  And we saw many of them during the distribution of the social amelioration program in our country.

Yes, these are stressful, troubling and sad times.  But it should not be an occasion for us to let our minds go unhinged.  Yes, with the easing of the lockdowns we can breathe a little, but we are still on life support—we shouldn’t let our guard down because the enemy is still alive and can turn vicious in the next waves. 

True, life will never be the same, which is why we shouldn’t let ourselves be enslaved anymore by our baser instincts.  We can enjoy, we can be happy, but we must do so with a mature mind—not anymore thinking that the sky is the limit when it comes to fun and work. 

And speaking of work, this is not anymore the time to think that the longer hours spent at the office is a mark of productivity.  It has never been and never will be in the future.  For many years, we have failed to balance work with real life.  It’s time to start winding down from the rat race of trying to climb the corporate ladder, because when offices and establishments close, we are stripped of our positions and ranks.  We would go hungry and miserable if we don’t even know how to plant and grow a vegetable, how to strategically shop at the markets and stores with a very limited budget, how to make our own food, how to mend our own clothes, how to cut our own hair, or how to take hikes of several kilometres under the burning heat of the noonday sun while being weighed down by a ton of groceries.

We may physically be bound and locked in, let loose a little with the threat of being locked down again should conditions go sour, but now more than ever, is the time to let our minds and spirits mature and get unlocked.