The bookends (Day 29 and Day 35) of the fifth week revealed an important concept to me about living an intentional life for God. Our focus on refraining from some behaviors and attitudes and embracing others really came alive to me as I experienced an old practice of separating the diseased from the healthy: the practice of quarantine.
You may remember this fifth week of our 40 Days of Intentional Living began with my computer freezing up on me. The reason was that over 300 viruses were potentially infecting it. The risk of unrepairable damage was very real. So the ITS professional quarantined those viruses.
In Day 35’s blog post, we got to learn a little bit about the living infective agent called the virus. It consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat and is too small to even be seen by light microscopy. Nevertheless, it’s able to multiply at exponential speeds when in the right environment. The right environment for a virus is a healthy cell. A virus will attach itself to a healthy cell and feed off it. When this happens, the healthy cell is at a high risk of becoming totally infected and potentially dying.
Viruses have the reputation of being contagious, highly contagious. Sometimes this means they have to be quarantined.
The Practice of Quarantine
The practice of quarantine is the separation of the diseased from the healthy. This practice began a long time ago. We know in the Old Testament rules existed for isolating lepers. They did this to help prevent the spread of this disease to healthy people.
I learned a fascinating fact when I researched the history of the practice of quarantine.
According to the Center for Disease Control, “This practice, called quarantine, was derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni which mean 40 days.”
The CDC noted, “It wasn’t until the Black Death of the 14th century, however, that Venice established the first formal system of quarantine, requiring ships to lay at anchor for 40 days before landing.”
And here we have yet another significant practice for 40 days. How cool is that?
I don’t believe in coincidences, so this seems relevant to me because we’re in a 40-day practice ourselves: 40 Days of Intentional Living.
There truly is something significant about the number 40.
Viruses
All of this made me really stop and think about viruses today. I started realizing how much the things we are to refrain from act like viruses and how much each thing can infect our lives and potentially cause real sickness in us and spread to others in our lives.
Viruses are parasites. Viruses need a host, but first they have to somehow get inside the host.
That’s exactly what happens with those things that we’ve been refraining from. They get inside of us and if we don’t quarantine them, they will infect, spread inside of us, and eventually spread to others and get them sick too.
We need to separate these behaviors from the healthy behaviors. They need to be contained so that they don’t take over and control us. We need to be intentional about the practice of quarantine.
Behaviors to Quarantine
So far, we have 35 things that have been revealed to us that we are to quarantine. But let’s just review week five’s list and see how these things get inside of us, infect us first, and then how they spread to others.
- Quarreling: Remember where quarreling comes from? Deep inside of you. From our own cravings and passions. Those things are at war inside each of us. (James 4:1) We are to contain those things so that we don’t argue with others because we can’t cultivate a healthy life with others (1 Corinthians 1:10) if we don’t quarantine those desires which causes quarreling.
- Lack of self-control is contagious. Remember that crazy research result where people with bad self-control influenced others negatively. The effect is so powerful that even seeing the name of someone with bad self-control flashing on a screen for just 10 milliseconds changed the behavior of those watching. We need to quarantine our lack of self-control because this behavior can spread to others in just 10 milliseconds!
- Hate: We need to contain, separate, hateful behaviors and attitudes. Hatred is like a poison. It’s so toxic that research now shows the impact it has on your own body and brain. Like the crazy research results from the lack of self-control study showed the immediate impact of just seeing a name, so it is when someone even thinks a negative thought about someone. It immediately sets off a whole slew of chemicals in your body and brain. God hates seven things (Proverbs 6:16-19) because all of them negatively impact others. Let’s quarantine hateful attitudes and behaviors.
- Unfaithfulness: “The way of the unfaithful leads to their destruction” (Proverbs 13:15, NIV). That about sums up unfaithfulness. Quarantine any unfaithfulness in your life, either toward God or toward others. Unfaithfulness will destroy you and them.
- Disobedience: If you disobey the Lord, you have sinned against Him. Guess what? You can “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). Remember my blue slipper story? Don’t provoke others or God to anger. You will have to pay the consequences at some time, your disobedience will catch up to you. Don’t be unwise and think this virus doesn’t do harm. It does incredible damage. Quarantine disobedience.
- Noise: The virus of noise weakens us. Have you ever been sick with a virus that fatigues you so much so that you just had no energy to move, let alone get up? Over time, when we allow the noise in this world to get into us, we will be slowly weakened. God says our strength comes in the quietness with Him (Isaiah 30:15). Quarantine the noise in your life every single day. Be still and get to know God (Psalm 46:10).
- Laziness: Laziness is like a virus. Viruses can’t survive on their own. So they seek a host to sponge off. In other words, to live, viruses rely on the generosity of healthy, hard-working cells. A lazy person does the same exact thing. God says that laziness actually decays a person and will eventually kill him (Proverbs 21:25). This death process can also sicken those who the lazy person is hosting on. We need to quarantine laziness so that this deathly illness does not spread.
Embrace the Practice of Quarantine
We need to embrace the practice of quarantine in our lives. I think if we don’t choose to intentionally quarantine, God will quarantine us. He is very patient, but like earthly parents, He has His limit.
When my children were little and if they misbehaved, I’d often put them in a timeout. Basically, I was intentionally separating them from the others to isolate their behavior so it didn’t have a ripple effect on the others. This action also let the other “healthy” behaving kids know what happens when they choose to behave in unhealthy ways. Like my mom showed me with the blue slipper, God sometimes has to do to us.
Set Apart
“Keep My laws and live by them. I am the Lord Who sets you apart” (Leviticus 20:8, NLT).
If we are God’s people, we are set apart from those who are not a part of His family. God Himself sets us apart.
“Set apart” means holy.
We are to live holy lives, healthy lives, therefore, we need to live intentionally.
My prayer for each of you as we enter Holy Week, is that you will pause, take a good assessment of the things God is asking you personally to quarantine in your life, so that you may truly be healthy, able to have good things flow in and out of you.
Blessing for Your Day
[callout]May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)[/callout]
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