I read today that doctors suspect a link between Covid-19 and Parkinson’s disease. Apparently the inflammation caused by Covid could have long-term effects on the body and lead to more serious repercussions later in life.
The longer the pandemic progresses, I imagine that may prove to be only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ripple-effects of the scourge. Who knows what else one might be susceptible to after surviving Covid-19?
As I read that I wondered whether those people who believe Covid is only like the flu and have been so flippant about wearing masks and quarantining properly, would have thought differently if they realised that their actions could cause them to end up with Parkinson’s?
It is a bit like people who think they can disregard God’s moral laws as confining and restricting and live as they please. They might think they are only risking a short term consequence that they are prepared to wear, when in fact the long term implications of what they are doing are many times more serious.
The truth is that we know so little about Covid-19 and how it affects our bodies, how long it stays in our systems and what it can do to us long term, that it makes sense to take precautions to never get it. Even if it is unlikely to kill us outright, it is going to affect our quality of life, perhaps considerably.
The same is true of sin. We humans think that our wrongdoings only have little consequences that affect us – our STD, our hangover, our bad high, our broken heart or jail stint; but our sins have long shadows that have knock-on consequences for those we love and invisible repercussions in our psyches and souls.
God knows. He made us and He told us how to live, not in order to curb our fun or limit our joy, but in order for us to have the most whole and fulfilling lives we could, because that is how He designed us to function.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. Psalm 1:1