Pandemic Sin

Have you been irritable stuck in your home during this pandemic? Are you fearful about the future? Have you been reaching for food or drink to calm your anxiety? Fantasy or pornography to alleviate your loneliness?

Have you been making the most of your time at home, or are you drifting from God in complacency? Things are starting to open up. How is your heart?

In Dubai, we were under strict lockdown. One of us could leave the house every three days for groceries but only after obtaining a government issued permit. We couldn’t even legally walk around the block. Our flights to the U.S. were canceled. Our future plans were up in the air. We were waiting—in a holding pattern—with a son graduating from high school, a daughter graduating from college and another daughter with canceled summer plans.

We were finally able to get on a plane to move our son to America (after growing up in Dubai from the age of three). We made it through some precarious travel and things seemed to be going well. But then my son got a sore throat—doctors suspected COVID-19, so we got him tested. Now, we’re waiting again, quarantined. And often in our family of five, we’re rubbing each other the wrong way. We’re waiting, facing a lot of uncertainty like everyone else, and I can’t help but see patterns of sin.

I’m not surprised by the sin. It’s been my adversary for 54 years. I could euphemistically call it irritableness, but at root it’s anger that comes out in an unkind, sharp tone of voice toward my husband and kids and leaves them bruised. It happens when I don’t get my way—when I wake up tired to dirty dishes left around the house, when I’m interrupted while trying to get something done, when I’m disrespected or disobeyed. Anxiety makes it worse. These circumstances are like a petri dish where my ugly sin shows. Comfort, control, respect: these are the idols I worship.

In the goodness of God, I’ve been studying Romans. Chapter 6 is all about being transferred from bondage to sin to bondservant of God, obedience from the heart. So I’ve chosen a particular sin to work on while studying Romans 6—this sin that I regularly struggle with and that is particularly rearing its ugly head during lockdown.

What are your besetting sins? What are the patterns of sin in your life that feel like a broken record playing again and again over your days, months and years? The Bible teaches us that we all struggle with sin (Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8, 10) so join me here over the next five Mondays in a Bible study of Romans 6 and use this summer and God’s word to fight that particular sin.

I’ll be posting an inductive Bible study each Monday with a related devotional the following Wednesday, beginning July 6^th and continuing through the first week of August.