By David Phillips
I think this is Wednesday. At least I told myself that when I woke up this morning. That’s a habit of mine, to think about what day it is when I first wake up, probably because as I get older, I need more reminders about some of the most basic of things. And quite frankly, the past three weeks of interrupted routine have made it a little harder for me to keep up with some of the most basic parts of my schedule without more reminders.
To be sure, Wednesday night Bible Study has long been a landmark in the middle of my week, and I don’t think I could adequately express how much I miss it. Not just as a reminder that I’m halfway between Sunday and Sunday, but even more importantly, as a midweek motivator, to help keep my spiritual battery topped off. I would not have guessed how much I could miss seeing everyone in person, and being with you for that precious hour, week in and week out. It is infinitely true that some of the most precious things we have can best be appreciated only when we have to do without them for a time. That’s certainly true of our Bible Study and Worship gatherings.
It is also very true in everyday life, that when something we are deeply accustomed to and dependent on is lost or taken away, we compensate. Sometimes we compensate by leaving off. For example, when you have a knee that goes bad, you compensate by not running and jumping any more. Any number of things can go wrong with our physical bodies, requiring us to change our ways, unable to do certain things again. Sometimes, though, we can compensate by substituting. For example, if the lawnmower dies, maybe we’d hire the kid down the road to mow the grass until we could get the mower back going again. We can’t just let the grass grow unmanaged.
Hopefully, with the temporary loss of our ability to congregate for Sunday worship and Wednesday Bible Study on a regular basis, we are figuring out how to compensate by substituting, in stead of compensating by leaving off. For Sundays, we are able to substitute a “virtual” congregation, tuned in together to the live stream worship service through the church website. What are you substituting for our midweek Bible Study gathering? Here are a few suggestions that have worked for me:
- Set aside a block of time without distractions to spend in thought and meditation, preferably close to the time you would normally be assembled with your church family. 1 Timothy 4:15-16
- Pick a subject and see how much you can find about it in the Scriptures, considering not just the subject, but also the context of the passages in which you find your subject mentioned. Acts 17:11
- Spend some specific time in prayer, praying about the needs of those on our prayer list, as well as the circumstances in our world that currently have everything in disruption. James 5:16
- Make a list of church family members to contact, encouraging them and letting them know you miss them and are concerned for them while we are apart. Hebrews 10:24; 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10
- Make this activity a part of your mid-week routine, so it becomes a landmark in your week, until regular order and practice are resumed. In that way, you’ll be more readily able to step back into the routine of our normal Wednesday night Bible Study. Hebrews 10:25
Remember, don’t compensate by leaving off. Compensate by substituting the wholesome things you can do, in order to maintain a consistent, beneficial routine. And pray that all this interruption will soon come to an end.