It is time to plan to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in!

It is time to plan to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in!

Post COVID 19 things will have changed. It will take a long time for Australia to get back to where we were at the beginning of 2020. There will be gaps in our economy. Increased unemployment, a lower ASX, a greater increase in people on social security, houses prices may fall, investment incomes could be lower. etc.

I accept that there will be changes that will affect me, my family, the community in which I live and for my nation; but what are we are going to do about those changes? Right now lots of people are watching lots of Netflix dressing up to take their bins out and hoping that in the end, everything will come out in the wash and that someone will come in at the last minute and save the day. (Some hope that James Bond and Superman really exist!) But are wasting our time?

I think that right now, we are in a good place to reassess and plan for a new future. We should turn off Netflix for a while, think, and pray about how we are going to move ahead. There will be new opportunities out there; new challenges will rise to meet us. How are we going to deal with them?

What will our post COVID communities look like and where exactly will we fit in? Will we have the same job, will we be able to support our community or will we need our community to support us whilst our family’s recover for the COVID emergency?

For me, my vision is a little wider than just my family, community and nation.  My concerns are also for refugees and poor communities in the developing world who will have been ravaged by COVID 19 and how we address that. For me, as I look forward, I see that it will be a time when we need to roll up our sleeves and get stuck into mopping up the mess that COVID leaves in its wake, not just in our nation but in the nations of others. It is not a time to focus on me and my needs but rather to look to those who are the least and work to somehow bring them out of the post COVID quagmire.

If ever we needed to love our neighbour, post COVID is it! Love is always practical and not esoteric! Love is giving even if it hurts. Love is saying yes even if it inconvenient. Love is long hours of focus just to see one person make it. At Easter, we talk about the cross being the practical outworking of God loving the world. Crucifixion was a torturous death. Yet Jesus endured that because He loved us. There were no esoteric warm fuzzies at Calvary! Our love for those near and far who are recovering from COVID 19 will not be easy, and the feel-good fuzzies may be few and far between, but love is practical and always comes at a cost.   

So the time I find myself in now is not so much a time to feast on Netflix but to plan and pray for the days that lie ahead. In my view, if we do not do this now, we lose an incredible opportunity to plan to roll up our sleeves and bring hope to the world. This could well be the “for such a time as this” moment for this generation.

So how are you planning to roll up your sleeves? If you don’t know, it’s time to turn off Netflix and begin the journey of finding out!