Over the past few days, Laci and I have looked at each other on multiple occasions and remarked at just how weird all of this is. I bet you have felt that at some point as well.

Think about it: we live in a fast-paced world and are used to having options coming out of our ears for ways to pass the time. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of that has come to a screeching halt. Social distancing is the phrase of the day which has resulted in many of our normal activities being unavailable. With so many of our favorite activities not available, we’re all asking: how am I going to pass the time

But I think there is a better question to ask: How do I avoid wasting the time?

I want to suggest five ways to avoid wasting your quarantine. However, I want to be clear on the front end that I am not just making suggestions to help you fill the next few weeks or months. My hope is that by making the most of the time you have now, these will all become normative in your daily life:

1. Engage in Family Worship. Between busy schedules and uncertainty about how to do it, family worship can often fall by the wayside. Believe me, I know. However, the scriptures are clear: God commands parents to teach their children about him and how to follow him (Deuteronomy 6:7; Psalm 78:4). More specifically, men are commanded to lead their family in the worship of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

Have you considered that perhaps, the Lord in his kindness, is taking away all that normally occupies your time? In this season, my encouragement to you is to begin the regular practice of family worship. Make it a part of your dinner routine by reading, praying, and singing while you eat. Perhaps you start during the meal and continue once it is over? However you implement it in your family, use extra time together as family to read the bible, to pray, and sing praises to the Lord.

If you would like resources to help with that, we want to help you. Tom regularly posts family worship guides to the church blog. You can check those out here and here:

• (https://www.emmanueltuscaloosa.org/blog/post/family-worship---discipleship-resources)
• (https://www.emmanueltuscaloosa.org/blog/post/this-week-in-family-worship_4)

I will also be posting resources to the blog to be used for family devotionals. But whether you use those or not, don’t waste this time: implement family worship and make it a regular part of life in your family that sticks long after life returns to normal.

2. Participate in the Ordinary Means of Grace. The scriptures are true, are authoritative for the Christian, and are the only source for sound doctrine (2 Timothy 3:14-17). God has given them to us so that we might know him and worship him.

God has ordained prayer as means by which we praise him, confess our sins to him, and profess need for him in every facet of life (Matthew 6:9-13). Prayer is also a means by which saints participate with God in his redemptive work (Luke 10:2).

But sadly, these means by which God grows and matures his people are often shoved to the sidelines of our busy, hectic lives. Have you considered that perhaps, the Lord in his mercy, has removed much of our busyness so that we might turn back to the scriptures and prayer, repent of our apathy, and begin developing the habits that must be mainstays in the life of the Christian?

We do not grow in the Christian faith apart from regular study of the scriptures and prayer. During whatever downtime you have, the temptation is going to be to bury yourself in Netflix, Disney +, news networks, and social media. Don’t do it. Don’t waste your quarantine. Take up and read the scriptures. Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Engage in the disciplines necessary for living a spiritually healthy life.

3. Read Good Books. While it may not be commanded in the scriptures like family worship and the ordinary means of grace, reading good books will serve you better in the long run than will binge-watching your favorite show for the 10^th There is so much we can learn from wise men and women who see things in the scriptures we have overlooked or who might phrase a thought or idea in a way that helps makes sense of the scriptures in ways they have not before.

We keep a running list of books we recommend to our college students. Here are a few suggestions:

• The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield
• The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever
• Why Trust the Bible by Greg Gilbert
• Who is Jesus by Greg Gilbert
• Knowing God by J. I. Packer
• Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper
• The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul
• The Gospel at Work: How Working for King Jesus Gives Purposes and Meaning to our Jobs by Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert
• Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life by Don Whitney

4. Love Your Neighbor. Social distancing does not suspend the command to love your neighbor as yourself. While you may not be hosting dinner parties in your home, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique opportunity for each of us to engage in this timeless command.

Our natural inclination is going to be to turn inward: do I have enough food in the pantry? How do I keep my family safe? Do we have enough toilet paper?

But what about your next door neighbor?

What about the elderly who are trapped at home because they cannot risk getting sick?

What about families who have an adult or child with a pre-existing medical condition?

What about the single mom or hourly worker who lost their job as a result of restrictions resulting from this virus?

What about people who are just scared?

Perhaps you go grocery shopping for someone or maybe it is just an encouraging word. But avoid the temptation to just think through the things you and your family need and consider ways to serve the people around you.

But don’t just think about this in terms of temporary needs created by this virus. Think in terms of forming relationships with the long-term goals of sharing the gospel and making disciples of Christ.

5. Miss the Church.  We were not made for online worship services. Government regulations may necessitate that we watch services and listen to sermons online for a time, but my plea to you is to reject any thought or feeling that this seems more convenient, or that this feels normal. It isn’t.

Have you thought that perhaps, the Lord in his wisdom, has given this season to the Church to increase our longing for the corporate gathering? Have you considered what you won’t have access to?

• Joining fellow saints in singing praises to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19)
• Participating in the ordinances of the Church: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
• Sharing prayer needs and offering prayers to God corporately
• Coming together to sit under the preached Word of God (2 Timothy 4:2)
• Bearing one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:1)
• The joy of being gathered with the people of God

We may be tempted to say that we can enjoy these things just the same through a screen but that simply isn’t true. We have to acknowledge there is something very different about being physically present with a congregation, joining together to sing about God’s mercy to us in Christ and listen to the preaching of God’s word. There is nothing in this world that can replace the unity we have and experience through personal relationships with the people of God. When we cannot be together, we should feel that loss and feel it deeply.

We are commanded in Hebrews 10:24-25 to not neglect meeting with believers to worship the Lord. During this season where we are unable to gather because of government restrictions, my hope is that we all come to feel the weight of this command and the burden of not being together. May God grant us repentance for where we have taken the weekly gathering for granted.

Have you long desired to have more time to study the bible, to pray, to have regular times of family worship, or to get to know your neighbors? You have that time right now. But have you been using the extra time you have on your hands to do any of those things? If not, then time isn’t the issue – and it never was.

What we need are greater affections for God.

Don’t waste your quarantine. Use the time you have to seek God in his word, to lead your family in worship of him, to read the reflections of godly men and women, to love your neighbor, and grow in love for the Church. In that, my hope and prayer for each of us is that God would increase in us longing and love for him.