Dr Jim Bob Haggerton

“Plan for the worst….but hope for the best”

So like the rest of you, we are in our new current normal of family quarantine.

Cindy or I go out for the essentials but that’s it right now and we are hugging close to home and doing everything here with the kids. Our work schedules haven’t changed a ton since all of our jobs are online…but with the kids being home from school we have obviously had to get more creative with how we get all that done.

Across the world there are varying levels of lockdown happening.

In Europe, people are not being allowed out of their homes at all…

In California (and other states) they initiated a “Shelter in Place” order…

Other places are less strict about it all for now and are not really acting affected that much by either the virus or schedule or anything.

There is so much information online (most of it false) that it’s super hard to figure out what to do or what to think and believe.

One of my favorite sayings and mindsets that I have lived by my whole life (that drives Cindy crazy at times…LOL) is:

“Plan for the worst, but hope for the best”

It’s the mindset of getting ourselves ready mentally, physically and emotionally for more worst-case scenario when it comes to schedule or food or immunity or anything like that….while at the same time not dwelling on those things and believing/hoping that the BEST scenarios are what will actually come to pass.

So that looks like having food stocked up to have to stay home for at least a month….maybe more.

Even if you have too much or don’t eat everything….I think you’ll get a “Wasteful Pass” this time due to the quarantine that quite possibly could go on for longer.

It means really budgeting your spending and planning on economy getting way worse, while believing/hoping that this is just a temporary hiccup and we are back on top as a country in just a few weeks.

It means getting some things lined up at your home for extreme immune support and getting a plan together if you or someone you love gets really sick….while believing/hoping that no one is going to get anything at all and if they do it will just be a minimal cold.

I think one of the issues people have is that they have a hard time thinking about worst case scenarios without just stopping right there and freaking out about it instead of going:

“Ok, here is the WORST case….now, let’s work backwards from there and get prepared for that knowing that it most likely will never come to that”.

For some of you the biggest thing you are going to have the opportunity to learn and work on during this season is in controlling your thoughts and fear and truly understanding how to “take every thought captive”.

Too long as a society we have let our thoughts and our mouths (or fingers on the keyboard) run wild and think/say what they want both to our detriment and the detriment of people around us. It’s a great time to learn better how to control those and to take those fears to the Lord AND to learn to talk through our worst fears with someone who can logically do so in our lives and find where truth lies.