Coronavirus & the Right to Travel

The coronavirus is in all the news. It seems that every few minutes, there’s a new development and a new headline. When I opened my iPad this morning, the headline notification read, “Stay home, do nothing, save lives: How Canada Could Avoid the Worst of COVID-19” (CBC NEWS online, March 14, 2020).  This pretty much goes against all that we work for to get away and enjoy life, doesn’t it?  Who wants to stay home? And now that Spring Break is upon us, many families want to get away on an end-of-winter holiday.

A few minutes after reading the news, I received a phone call from one of the members in my new writer’s group. She cancelled out and said she’ll rejoin in the fall.  Emails came in cancelling next week’s activities.  Social distancing has begun in earnest since Doctors and other professionals have warned this is the only way to contain the virus. Public schools are closed to students for three weeks, universities have ended early, and all sports and many entertainment venues are cancelled and/or suspended. The World Health Organization has called it pandemic. There are warnings after warnings to stay home so it won’t spread any further. Indeed, many have now said “It’s a different world.”

So, we might wonder what’s going on? I’d like to share some thoughts that have come to mind since this all started. I had heard a prophecy by Kent Christmas (see this link), and it had quite an impact on me. For one thing, it dealt with areas where perhaps people had given very little thought to God because something or someone else had taken His place. One of those areas he mentioned was sports vying for the attention that God deserves, and that sports were taking God’s place of honour since most of it happened on Sunday, the Lord’s day. Now with this virus fear, there are NO sports events going on. 

There are many other areas hit as well, and one of them is entertainment. People do not want to go to theatres or any arenas or public places where you stand/sit shoulder to shoulder with someone else. For now, those days are gone because of the threat of the virus.

Perhaps the hardest hit area is traveling, where it started to spread in the first place. And this is mainly what I want to talk about.  I always wanted to travel for as long as I can remember because I am very interested in other cultures and countries to experience and write about. I’ve taken many trips, but I don’t feel I’m finished by any means. However, my plans to travel were put on hold many years ago when God had clearly impressed on me to put aside all dreams of future travel. Instead He wanted me to write books. I have since written 46 books and publications, and dozens of blogs. God wanted me to put Him first, and put aside my own desires so I could write these inspirational books. This was at times, very difficult, and yet He inspired me to write book after book.  The books are mostly well researched, and are Christian based. Check them out here.

Yet, even after the last full-length fiction was completed last year, and I didn’t feel an urgency to begin another book, we still couldn’t get away. This is when my husband and I really searched our hearts in earnest, and we talked at length about the whole idea of traveling. What we learned may surprise you as it did us. For one thing, have you ever thought about traveling as a great privilege instead of a right? Have you thought it is something you deserve and earned because of your hardships in life? I know I likely thought that at one time.  My husband found a scripture about an unworthy servant that Jesus shares in Luke 17:7-10.

Luk 17:7  “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?

Luk 17:8  Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?

Luk 17:9  Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?

Luk 17:10  So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” ESV

In other words, whatever we are called to do, and we do it, we are doing our duty, not that we deserve a reward for doing it. Wow! Talk about humbling!  Traveling is not something we deserve, but a gift and a privilege if God opens the door and blesses us that way.

We also discovered that without a good purpose, why travel? As Bible-believing Christians, we are to do God’s work wherever we are, and most importantly, wherever we are called. Should travel be used as an escape because we need a “refreshing?” Sometimes I wonder about that. Shouldn’t we consider wherever we go a mission field, and consider God’s work first and foremost? After all, we are to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Ouch! Yes, this verse had come to me when I thought I deserved a holiday and/or an escape from the harshness of our winters.  A soldier doesn’t always get a vacation, does he? NO. He is in a battle and he must be on guard and keep watch and not be slothful.

2Ti 2:3  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

2Ti 2:4  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

For many years while I was busy writing, when I needed a refreshing, I did not get the opportunity to travel and get away. So, I had to find other ways to relax and get a refreshing. And when I really wanted to travel and couldn’t, I just kept giving it over to the Lord, and I started thanking Him for everything else He had so generously and lovingly provided for me to enjoy.

Travel has created this pandemic as people have brought it back to their home countries. Perhaps God wants us to stay home, no more running away. Spend the time with Him and discover anew how great is our God. His mercy endures forever. He is worthy of our praise and 100% of our life and attention.

1Co 7:22  For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.

1Co 7:23  Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.

1Co 7:24  Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.