Stop, Start, Change
Written by Ps Zheng Haoren
Stop, Start, Change are key words to consider and apply when one enters or plans to enter into a new phase of life – What do you have to stop doing? What do you have to start doing? What do you need to change? These three questions have one thing in common – Habits!
Try applying these questions to one entering the working world; getting married; becoming a parent or grandparent; switching to a new job; relocating to another country; contracting a serious illness; transiting to part-time employment; retiring from the workforce; struggling in a civil conflict or war; coping with a pandemic; etc. Would “Start, Stop, Change” questions help to clarify priorities?
Three other questions with respect to the current Covid-19 pandemic were posed on this WIS page over the last 17 months, as follows:
(A) “Should we maintain the attitude of riding through this pandemic and reverting to our usual intense lifestyles again?” ~ WIS April 2020
(B) “Do we prefer the world we have found at the end of this year (2020) or do we still prefer the world we had left behind?” ~ WIS December 2020
(C) “Will things ever be the same again as in pre-Covid times?” ~ WIS April 2021
Habits to stop, start, or change are very personal. But one principle should be heeded – At life equilibrium, something in would require something out. It’s just too stressful, unrealistic, and unhealthy to try hanging on to everything.
So, as our nation marches on towards a Covid-19 endemic condition, what would personal, family, work, and church life look like for you? What habits do you need to stop, to start cultivating, or to change?
Regardless, as followers of Jesus, our fundamental habits must be derived from the apostle Paul’s instructions in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22,
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” May the Lord help and lead us to emerge with deeper spiritual maturity from the current pandemic in a chaotic world!
