Right now, I'm assuming that you are at home around the clock and are finding yourself with an abundance of free time. I know I sure am.
During the first few days where my school and activities were canceled and I was home all day, I was upset and lived pretty passively. I laid around, playing games on my phone and spent far too much time doing nothing of consequence. After a couple of days of this, I had a thought, that, quite frankly, I should have had right when this started. I thought of the days this year when I had been so busy. When asked at youth group what was holding us back from our faith the most, I often answered, "busyness". School, sports, and other extracurricular activities left little time for much else. However, now that all of these things were canceled, I had infinite time but was still not using it in the right ways. I decided it was time to take back my free time. I certainly am not perfect at this, but every day I am striving to find things to do that matter.
It seems that now that everyone has an abundance of free time, we are being bombarded with people and companies telling us ways we can fill this time. Streaming networks want you to spend your time binge-watching shows and movies. Companies send you emails about their sales so you will shop online for things you don't need because you have nothing to do. And it seems like there is always a live stream on social media or YouTube to be watched. None of these things are bad, and some of them are even good. Watching faith-based YouTube channels is a great way to spend your time, and of course there are going to be times when we need to shop online. However, if we spend our whole day watching movies or binge-ing YouTube videos with no real purpose behind them, we are letting our free time be stolen from us.
I want to provide a list of activities to do to take back your free time. These are things that will better you, serve others, or draw you closer to God in some way. Enjoy!
-Read your Bible
-Pray (especially for healing and hope in our world)
-Listen to sermons online
-Take an online course on a platform such as Outschool or Coursera
-Call, send texts, or, even better, write encouraging letters to friends and family members to let them know how much they mean to you
-Help out with chores
-Work on a skill you want to get better at, and think of ways God can be glorified through this
-Worship
-Ask friends/family if there's anything you can be praying about for them, or set up an online prayer group
-Write to persecuted Christians through Open Doors. Make sure to follow their letter writing guidelines.
-Memorize Scripture
-Learn a new language
-Virtually tutor someone who is struggling with school closures
-Check out some articles on The Rebelution
Don't let unexpected free time be wrenched out of your grasp. Live purposefully everyday!
That's all I have! If you have any other ideas, let me know in the comments and I'll try to add them to the list!
-Abigail