AS someone well into that age-group identified as vulnerable to Covid-19, I have had extra time recently to contemplate both my own mortality and my role within the community.

Being blessed with good health, I’ve felt a compulsion to get out there and make myself useful. At the same time, my wife – who is an NHS health-care professional – has emphasised that the best way I can help is to stay at home and stay well.

I’ve been thinking again about what the Bible has to say regarding our attitude as followers of Jesus to our own personal well-being. Some teaching I heard recently pointed out how often in the Old Testament people were actively seeking the blessings the Lord God had promised.

Receiving a special mention among a long list of names in the Tribe of Judah was Jabez, an honourable man who ‘called on the God of Israel saying: “Oh, that you would bless me indeed…” So God granted what he requested’ (1 Chronicles 4, v.10).

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, gave every reason for his hearers to expect blessings in their everyday lives. And in summing up the Ten Commandments, he included “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”.

Now, at this point, some may quote Jesus’ words in John 15, v. 13: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. But this was said the night before he would do exactly that. I don’t think it was an instruction that we should actively seek to put our own lives on the line as a matter of course.

Thousands of people – of all faiths and none – are working faithfully in the health and care sector, fully aware of the risks. I am enormously thankful for that but I cannot join them in what they do.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu famously urged us all: “Do what you can, where you can.”

For each of us, in these circumstances, that will have a different meaning. And even as we ask God to bless us in what we do, may we know how to share the blessings we receive.

SIMON RATSEY

Life Central Church, Wellington