[Darris McNeely] Are you like me, fed up to right here with all this COVID business, a very serious pandemic, a very serious virus that has infected the world, but it's been going on now for the better part of the year and it's still with us when many of us would have thought that we would be beyond it at this time, and yet it hasn't?

We read about people even closer to us now, friends and other associates that we work with, getting it or didn't get it before. We read about, as I did this week, in London, in the United Kingdom, essentially shutting down the City of London just before Christmas, that holiday period, and telling people no restaurants, don't get together, people trying to get out of town. It's strange. And all of this taking place just at the time when, in the United States, the vaccines are being rolled out. Two now already and a third one on the horizon, people taking the vaccine, and the numbers are still there. And it gets kind of close. And I have to admit, I've had it up to here. And I began to think about various things and you almost get a bit discouraged. And you just wonder when will it all end?

When you get to that point, and here as I'm talking to myself right now, you need to call somebody. You need to get a second opinion on yourself. Make sure you're contacting someone, staying in close contact. Get in touch with someone else that you know might be having a hard time. Get yourself into a routine. Get to bed on time. Get up at a proper time. Quit reading too much on the internet about COVID. Make a quilt. Do a puzzle. Make a pot of soup, but do something.

You know, we're looking for peace. We're looking for peace of mind that we still need to get through this time and we will, but we have to do the right things.

In Philippians 4:8, a well-known passage of Scripture, Paul says for us to think on whatever things that are pure, lovely, out of good report, things that are of virtue and praiseworthy. Think on those things. And in other words, get a positive frame of mind. To do that, we have to be proactive. Do what you can do.

Put a Bible next to that coffee pot in the morning. So, the first thing you do after you turn that coffee pot on is maybe read a verse of the Bible and think about that. Put God first, put His Word first, put our mind there. And we can have the assurance that as Paul says that we will have the peace of God with us. It's that peace that we need, that peace that will help get us through this time of distress and turmoil. Put it to God.

That's "Beyond Today," join us next time.